Biocapacity-based assessment of trade openness and environmental quality in G20 countries

Biocapacity-based assessment of trade openness and environmental quality in G20 countries | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Biocapacity-based assessment of trade openness and environmental quality in G20 countries Mohammad Nadimur Rahman, Bekir Çelik, Cüneyt Dumrul This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9183601/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This study investigates the relationship between trade openness and environmental degradation in G20 countries using a comprehensive sustainability framework that extends beyond carbon-centric assessments. In contrast to the prevailing focus on CO₂ emissions, the analysis prioritizes the inverted load capacity factor, a biocapacity-based indicator that captures the imbalance between ecological demand and available natural resources. Ecological footprint and CO₂ emissions are additionally included to ensure robustness and comparability. The study employs panel data methods and panel quantile regression to account for heterogeneity across different levels of environmental pressure. The empirical findings provide strong support for the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis, indicating that economic growth initially intensifies environmental degradation but leads to environmental improvement beyond a certain income threshold. Trade openness is found to generally alleviate environmental pressure, with its mitigating effects being more pronounced when environmental sustainability is assessed using the inverted load capacity factor. This suggests that technology diffusion, efficiency gains, and cleaner production mechanisms outweigh scale effects in most G20 economies. However, adverse trade-related environmental impacts persist at higher levels of ecological stress, highlighting asymmetric dynamics. In addition, globalization and human capital development significantly enhance environmental sustainability. Overall, the results highlight the necessity of aligning trade liberalization with environmental regulation, clean technology diffusion, renewable energy deployment, and sustained investment in human capital. By prioritizing a biocapacity-oriented indicator of environmental degradation, this study contributes to the cleaner production literature and offers policy-relevant insights for advancing sustainable and low-carbon development pathways in both advanced and emerging G20 economies. Environmental degradation Trade openness Inverted load capacity factor Ecological footprint CO₂ emissions Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files GraphicalAbstractEMA.pdf DataEMA.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9183601","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":612460139,"identity":"4f149346-1fe8-404b-ad1c-7dfd4ca722cd","order_by":0,"name":"Mohammad Nadimur Rahman","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Mohammad","middleName":"Nadimur","lastName":"Rahman","suffix":""},{"id":612460143,"identity":"d7b086d7-d1b2-43b4-87d3-1a8a143c9e3f","order_by":1,"name":"Bekir Çelik","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAx0lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACAwYGxgMJB2wgPB4itTAAtaTBtUgQp4XhwGEStJizHz5w4MGZ83nmEgmMD962MdSZNxDQYtmTlnAg4cbtYssZCcyGc9sYJGQOEHLYDR6DAwkfbiduuJHAJs0L1ELQZQY3+D8AtZwDaWH/TaQWHmCI3TgAtoWZKC1AvwAddiY5ccOZh82Sc85JSM4gpAUYYg8f/jhml7jhePLBD2/KbPgJhzIcCCQ2MBATLUiA/wApqkfBKBgFo2AkAQDBJkYpWA40UgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Nuh Naci Yazgan University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Bekir","middleName":"","lastName":"Çelik","suffix":""},{"id":612460144,"identity":"e7c2bdf5-c527-4759-b732-4ea1777b6140","order_by":2,"name":"Cüneyt Dumrul","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Erciyes University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Cüneyt","middleName":"","lastName":"Dumrul","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-03-21 06:23:29","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9183601/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9183601/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":105782737,"identity":"6285f4fe-9dc7-4c4c-902f-667a327078a4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-31 05:41:37","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":634383,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"ManuscriptEMA1.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9183601/v1_covered_e6e9f44a-e783-42e1-935e-fa94ceadc149.pdf"},{"id":105550088,"identity":"ead8d5a2-3cb3-4256-8311-2738f8212d1a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-27 09:49:22","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":81173,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"GraphicalAbstractEMA.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9183601/v1/9356388bd5290566706ce2ad.pdf"},{"id":105566433,"identity":"c53ae5cc-5eb8-4a3e-b652-319c9a25fdb2","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-27 12:56:26","extension":"docx","order_by":3,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":12296,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"DataEMA.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9183601/v1/ae6c2a3299456f5a6d40ba52.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003eBiocapacity-based assessment of trade openness and environmental quality in G20 countries\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Environmental degradation, Trade openness, Inverted load capacity factor, Ecological footprint, CO₂ emissions, Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9183601/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9183601/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"This study investigates the relationship between trade openness and environmental degradation in G20 countries using a comprehensive sustainability framework that extends beyond carbon-centric assessments. In contrast to the prevailing focus on CO₂ emissions, the analysis prioritizes the inverted load capacity factor, a biocapacity-based indicator that captures the imbalance between ecological demand and available natural resources. Ecological footprint and CO₂ emissions are additionally included to ensure robustness and comparability. The study employs panel data methods and panel quantile regression to account for heterogeneity across different levels of environmental pressure.\nThe empirical findings provide strong support for the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis, indicating that economic growth initially intensifies environmental degradation but leads to environmental improvement beyond a certain income threshold. Trade openness is found to generally alleviate environmental pressure, with its mitigating effects being more pronounced when environmental sustainability is assessed using the inverted load capacity factor. This suggests that technology diffusion, efficiency gains, and cleaner production mechanisms outweigh scale effects in most G20 economies. However, adverse trade-related environmental impacts persist at higher levels of ecological stress, highlighting asymmetric dynamics. In addition, globalization and human capital development significantly enhance environmental sustainability.\nOverall, the results highlight the necessity of aligning trade liberalization with environmental regulation, clean technology diffusion, renewable energy deployment, and sustained investment in human capital. By prioritizing a biocapacity-oriented indicator of environmental degradation, this study contributes to the cleaner production literature and offers policy-relevant insights for advancing sustainable and low-carbon development pathways in both advanced and emerging G20 economies.","manuscriptTitle":"Biocapacity-based assessment of trade openness and environmental quality in G20 countries","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-03-27 09:49:17","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9183601/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"3a381f17-7c8e-4f5a-a7c1-a6c9de792ac2","owner":[],"postedDate":"March 27th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-03-31T05:39:59+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-03-27 09:49:17","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-9183601","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-9183601","identity":"rs-9183601","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}