Reassessing the Education–FDI–Trade Nexus for a Sustainable Future: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Background Education, foreign direct investment (FDI), and trade openness influence environmental sustainability through competing human capital, technology transfer, scale, composition, and pollution-haven channels. Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa remains fragmented and often overlooks cross-sectional dependence and asymmetric responses. Methods This study examines a panel of Sub-Saharan African economies from 1990 to 2019, using production-based and consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions as environmental outcomes. The empirical strategy applies cross-sectional dependence and slope-heterogeneity diagnostics, second-generation unit root and cointegration tests, dynamic seemingly unrelated regression, continuously updated fully modified and bias-corrected estimators, asymmetric decompositions, and panel causality tests. Results Education is consistently associated with lower emissions across the principal long-run specifications. FDI is associated with lower production-based emissions but higher consumption-based emissions in the principal symmetric estimates, while the asymmetric findings show that the response differs between positive and negative FDI shocks and across time periods. Trade openness is predominantly emission-increasing, and urbanisation is associated with higher emission levels. Robustness analyses support the stability of core associations. Conclusions Sustainability policies in Sub-Saharan Africa should combine environmental education with screening and performance standards for FDI and trade-related production. Policies should consider asymmetric adjustments and economy-specific conditions when pursuing low-carbon development.