Iran’s sustainability gap under sanctions: An ARDL-ECM analysis of the load capacity factor

Ecological sustainability depends on the compatibility of demand arising from human activities with ecosystems’ biological regenerative capacity. The consumption-based load capacity factor (LCF) represents this balance as the ratio of domestic biocapacity per capita to the ecological footprint of consumption per capita. This study examines how income, capital formation, and energy use are associated with LCF in Iran and whether the energy–LCF association differs across levels of sanctions intensity. Annual data for 1965–2024 were analyzed within an autoregressive distributed lag framework and its error-correction representation, with lag selection based on the Bayesian information criterion and conditional bootstrap inference. LCF declined from 1.362 to 0.188, and Iran transitioned from an ecological reserve to an ecological deficit; the ecological sustainability gap also widened in relative terms. In the primary model’s conditional long-run estimates, higher real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was associated with higher LCF, whereas greater primary energy use per capita and a higher gross fixed capital formation share of GDP were associated with lower LCF. In the primary model, the negative energy–LCF association was stronger at higher levels of sanctions intensity, but this finding was sensitive to model specifications and sanctions coding. The bootstrap supF test also rejected coefficient constancy in the primary model. The estimated relationships are conditional associations, and the study does not identify the causal contribution of sanctions to the decline in LCF. The findings support considering energy and resource requirements in investment appraisal and monitoring LCF alongside economic indicators.