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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Driving Eco-Digital Transformation:
Exploring the Industrial and Digital Pathways
to Boost Carbon Emission Efficiency
1
School of Public Administration, Hohai University, Nanjing, 211100, China
2
School of Language, Culture and Media, Hefei University, Hefei, 230000, China
3
Department of Economics, Division of Management and Administrative Science,
University of Education Lahore, Pakistan
Submission date: 2024-08-27
Final revision date: 2024-10-18
Acceptance date: 2024-11-10
Online publication date: 2025-01-29
Publication date: 2026-01-29
Corresponding author
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2026;35(1):197-207
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Carbon emissions mainly cause environmental devastation, and they’re continuously rising
in the atmosphere. It is responsible for global warming, which causes severe climatic events, including
high temperatures and uneven rain distribution. However, the increasing global population has generated
a high demand for sustainable energy production and consumption. Therefore, for sustainable economic
development, it is necessary to produce economic outputs with minimal environmental hazards.
This study measures the total factor carbon emissions (CEE), consisting of input and two types of output
(gross domestic output as the desired output and CO2 emissions as the undesired output), by utilizing
complete data from 181 different economies for the period 1995-2022. Subsequently, it explores the
dynamic relationship between the digital economy (DIGI), industrial structure (INDSI), population
density (PD), and carbon emissions through the lens of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). Four
econometric approaches were used to obtain robust findings to address the problems of heterogeneity,
autocorrelation, and endogeneity. The outcomes revealed a significant positive impact of DIGI
and INDSI and a negative impact of PD on carbon emissions. Moreover, INDSI significantly moderates
the relationship between DIGI and CEE, increasing the positive environmental externality of DIGI.
The findings also confirm the existence of the EKC, implying that CEE decreases with an increase
in economic growth. After a certain level of economic growth, the CEE also started to increase.
Therefore, both the DIGI and INDSI can significantly contribute to reducing carbon emissions, leading to
a high CEE. Economies may adopt the incentive and award system, promote R&D in the industrial sector
through the collaboration of academic and research institutions, and transform their structure along with
the adoption of digital technologies to achieve the efficient use of energy and resources.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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