Digital transformation as environmental implementation capacity: resource-efficiency associations, spatial spillovers, and threshold evidence from Vietnam

Emerging economies must improve resource efficiency while managing energy demand, emissions pressure, industrial upgrading, and uneven subnational governance capacity. This study examines provincial digital transformation as environmental implementation capacity - the ability to mobilize information, coordination, adoption, and innovation for environmental management - rather than treating digitalization as inherently green. Using a balanced baseline panel of 63 Vietnamese provinces over 2010-2023 (882 province-year observations), we construct a five-dimensional Digital Transformation Indicator (DTI) and estimate two-way fixed-effects models, Spatial Durbin Models, an innovation-capacity pathway model, and Hansen threshold regressions. Provincial final energy use is harmonized from sectoral activity data and national energy balances; Green Total Factor Productivity and exclusion of high-imputation provinces provide sensitivity checks. In the preferred controlled fixed-effects model, DTI is positively associated with energy efficiency ( β = 0.334, p < 0.01). Spatial decomposition attributes 37.5% of the total association to cross-provincial spillovers. The bootstrapped innovation-capacity pathway estimate is 0.144 (95% CI [0.089, 0.212]), consistent with a material but noncausal innovation-capacity pathway. A threshold at DTI = 0.487, near the 60th percentile, separates a lower-slope regime (0.187) from a higher-slope regime (0.412). Results remain qualitatively stable across alternative DTI constructions, spatial matrices, outcomes, a reduced-sample two-period DTI lag, and endogeneity-oriented robustness checks. The findings support a conditional, noncausal interpretation of digital capability as an environmental implementation resource.