Towards sustainable development: how resource depletion, emissions, and renewable energy shape progress in OECD nations.

Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires a comprehensive understanding of the environmental factors influencing progress. This study examines the relationship between key environmental indicators—natural resource depletion, CO2 emissions, heating degree days, land surface temperature, methane emissions, nitrous oxide emissions, and renewable energy consumption—and the attainment of SDGs across 31 OECD countries from 2003 to 2020. Using the Dynamic panel model for linear relationships and panel quantile regression for nonlinear dynamics, evidence of cointegration and regional heterogeneity is found. Specifically, CO2 emissions, heating degree days, and renewable energy consumption positively affect SDGs in the long run. However, natural resource depletion, nitrous oxide emissions, and land surface temperature have negative impacts, with methane emissions showing no effects. Robustness tests using quantile regression confirm these relationships hold across different distribution levels. Policy implications include the need for strategies to reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions, while promoting renewable energy consumption to support SDG progress. Further research should focus on overcoming data limitations and integrating additional environmental factors to refine these findings.