Tracing Environmental Sustainability Pathways: Developing the Nexuses Between Female Employment, Industrial Production, Urbanization and <scp> CO ₂ </scp> Emission in Highly Populated Small‐Middle‐Income, Belt and Road Initiative Countries

ABSTRACT The main objective of this research study is to investigate the influence of female employment, income inequality, use of renewable energy, industrial production, and urbanization on CO 2 emissions in 15 highly populated small‐middle‐income Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries. The study examined annual data from 1990 to 2019 to provide a comprehensive discussion of the results. The 2nd generation analytical tools, Westerlund Bootstrap LM co‐integration test and PMG‐ARDL model, have been adopted to explore the interrelationships among the variables. Initial findings of the Westerlund Bootstrap LM test report a stable co‐integration relationship among the variables. The PMG‐ARDL measurements evaluate that, in the long run, female employment and renewable energy condense, while income inequality, industrial production, and urbanization expand the scale of CO 2 emissions. However, the study found that all other regressor impacts, except for renewable energy, were insignificant in the short term. Thus, the study findings suggest that the discussed economies must encourage female employment, promote advanced technology and renewable energy use in industrial sectors, and discourage urbanization to reduce CO 2 emissions and attain environmental sustainability for a greener and cleaner future.