Long-run relationship between R&D investment and environmental sustainability: Evidence from the European Union member countries

The researchers, environmental scientists and policymakers around the worldare exerting substantial efforts to mitigate the growth of CO2emissions to savethe planet. A number of measures and initiatives, such as, energy efficiency,renewable energy technologies and emission-control are proposed in order toreduce CO2emissions. This study examines the long-run relationship betweenR&D investment and environmental sustainability in a panel of 25 EuropeanUnion (EU) member countries over a period of 17 years (1998–2014). We userobust and reliable econometric methods to capture the interactions betweenR&D investment on renewable energy consumption and CO2emissions. Thefindings confirm that the growth of R&D expenditures promotes renewableenergy consumption and plays a significant role in reducing CO2emissions inthe sample countries. Furthermore, the findings suggest that increasing theshare of renewable energy consumption in the total energy mix also reducesCO2emissions. Given these results, we suggest that the EU policymakers pro-vide more financial and regulatory assistance to the R&D activities, specificallyin the energy sector, to ensure promoting low carbon economies in this region.