Rethinking Air Freight’s Environmental Impact: Energy and Digital Solutions for Sustainable Growth in the GCC

The global transport sector stands at a critical juncture where economic growth imperatives intersect with urgent environmental sustainability challenges. This paper investigates the impact of air freight transport, digitalisation, energy consumption, economic growth, and regulatory quality on CO2 emissions in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Despite the region’s strategic importance in global air freight networks and rapid digital transformation, empirical evidence on how these factors collectively influence environmental sustainability remains limited. GCC countries provide a unique context for examining the digitalisation–transport–environment nexus. Using panel data from six GCC member states spanning 1999–2022, this study employs a second-generation autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) model to analyse short- and long-run relationships while accounting for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. The empirical model designates CO2 emissions as the dependent variable, while the digitalisation indicator, air freight transport, and energy consumption serve as principal explanatory variables. The empirical findings indicate that energy consumption and economic growth are significant drivers of CO2 emissions in GCC countries, while digitalisation is associated with lower emissions. Regulatory quality exhibits a weaker but non-negligible negative influence. Moreover, air freight transport does not display a significant long-run effect on emission in the GCC context. These findings are robust across multiple panel estimators. The research provides evidence-based guidance for GCC national vision programmes, green aviation initiatives, and digital transformation strategies, contributing to a sustainable development discourse in resource-rich economies.