This study is conducted to examine the concerns of the foreign direct investment (FDI) causing environment degradation and also to test the validity of the traditional Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) in the context of emerging markets in the Asian region. Data of these countries from 1980–2016 are utilised. This study employs panel cointegration Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), which treats the endogeneity problem, and its estimators are adjusted for serial correlation. Moreover, this study also uses panel Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS), which includes contemporaneous value, leads and, lags of the first difference of the regressors to correct endogeneity problems and serial correlations. Findings from this study indicate that the pollution heaven hypothesis and the EKC curve are generally valid in the region. In addition, FDI has a strong impact on the environment.

In this paper, we seek to find a balanced structure of energy sources that can simultaneously achieve two essential goals: (i) the environmental (degradation) goal and (ii) the economic (growth) goal. This study combines quantitative and qualitative methods to estimate and then rank each of the energy sources (including coal, gas, oil, hydropower, and renewable energy) to achieve the above two goals. This paper uses the weighted scoring method, the most popular method in multi-criteria decision-making techniques, to combine the rankings using five energy sources and two goals from panel data of 28 countries from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for the period 1980–2017. Techniques for estimating the mean group long-run effect, including fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), are used. The empirical findings of this paper reveal that, in the long term, in achieving both environmental goals and economic goals, the OECD countries should consider adopting a balanced energy mix in which the following structure is preferred: (i) hydropower, (ii) renewables and (iii) fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal).