Evaluating the impact of digitalization, renewable energy use, and technological innovation on load capacity factor in G8 nations

Abstract

Ecosystems are in danger due to human-caused air, water, and soil pollution, so it is important to find the underlying causes of this issue and develop practical solutions. This study adds to environmental research gap by suggesting the load capability factor (LCF) and using it to look at the factors affectting environmental health. The load capacity factor simplifies monitoring environmental health by illustrating the distinction between ecological footprint and biocapacity. We examine the interplay between mobile phone users (Digitalization DIG), technological advancements (TEC), renewable energy use, economic growth, and financial development. This study assesses G8 economies’ data from 1990 to 2018, using a Cross-Section Improved Autoregressive Distributed Lag CS-ARDL estimator and a cointegration test. The data shows that green energy, TEC innovation, and DIG are all beneficial for natural health. Based on the results of this study, the G8 governments should focus on environmental policies that promote economic growth, increase the use of renewable energy sources, guide technological progress in key areas, and encourage the development of digital information and communications technologies that are better for the environment.

The weight of data: an analysis based on the impact on the environment

“…Parallel it is important to that not only the carbon footprint is part of the measurements that affect the environment in the field of ICT [30], as evidenced [16], the water footprint and the soil footprint, is essential in the impact, for this same reason this same author indicates for 2015 the global average water footprint for the use of the internet was 2.6 billion liters of water or the equivalent of filling 1 million olympic swimming pools; on the other hand, the average land footprint for internet use in 2015 was 3400 square kilometers of land, equivalent to joining Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and New York. It is important to highlight that not only suppliers, service providers, network infrastructure administrators are responsible, users through their dynamics of network use, are the ones who need to be aware of the costs of their actions in the network and the advantage that brings to make small changes in behavior and habits, as it raises [16] with substantial alternatives that allow mitigating the footprint of carbon, water and soil, among which we find, turn off the video during a virtual meeting, reduce the quality of HD transmission services to standard, reduce the time in the use of video games, limit time on social networks, eliminate unnecessary emails and unnecessary content from cloud storage services, eliminate automatic video streams, either by reducing their quality or by looking for an audio-only service among many others [31].…”

Elongating the role of renewable energy and sustainable foreign direct investment on environmental degradation

“…It's another wide discussion. The negative impact of ICT is contributing as a CO 2 emitter by producing ICT machinery, electric devices and recycling & reuses electronic waste with high energy consumption [ 32 ]. The positive and healthy contribution comes from the smarter cities establishment, well-structured electric grids, quick transportation systems, and accelerated industrial processes with fewer emissions.…”

The Impact of Renewable Energy Consumption on Environmental Quality in Central European Countries: The Mediating Role of Digitalization and Financial Development

“…Furthermore, the synergistic interaction between these factors intensifies the positive ecological impact of digitalization, indicating that combining digitalization with environmental policies can lead to more effective environmental quality improvements than implementing them separately. The study by Mehmood et al [15] examines data from G8 economies between 1990 and 2018. The findings show that green energy, technological innovation, and digitalization positively affect the environment.…”