Cleaner Growth, Healthier Futures: Renewable Energy and Demographic Pathways to Sustainable Healthcare in Emerging Economies

ABSTRACT Emerging economies face critical challenges in balancing rapid economic growth with environmental sustainability and public health as industrialization accelerates and energy demand rises. Increasing CO 2 emissions and ecological degradation undermine resilience and place mounting pressure on healthcare systems. Despite these linkages, limited empirical evidence examines how renewable energy transitions, demographic shifts, and environmental quality jointly affect healthcare expenditures. This study explores the long‐run impacts of renewable energy use (REN), education (EDU), ecological footprint (ECF), economic growth (GDP), CO 2 emissions (CE), urbanization (URB), and population aging (AGE) on healthcare expenditures (HEX) across the Next Eleven (N‐11) nations from 2000 to 2023. A balanced panel dataset was analyzed using Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) to address endogeneity and serial correlation. Findings reveal that renewable energy adoption mitigates CO 2 emissions and ecological pressures, reducing pollution‐related health burdens. Education promotes environmental awareness and healthier lifestyles, while urbanization and aging populations significantly increase healthcare demand and system costs. Moreover, economic growth aligned with cleaner technologies helps reduce the trade‐off between development and environmental degradation. These results highlight the need to integrate renewable energy transitions, education, demographic planning, and ecological protection into sustainable development strategies. Strengthening these synergies can lower healthcare costs, safeguard ecosystems, and advance progress toward key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 3 (Good Health and Well‐Being), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG 13 (Climate Action).