Nexus between sustainable entrepreneurship and environmental pollution: evidence from developing economy

Today, society is seeking solutions to achieve sustainable development, through association between entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainable development has become a topic of great apprehension. In this perspective, this article aims to link environmental responsive entrepreneurship with sustainable development through empirical evidences from developing country. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to validate the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis to confirm the achievement of sustainable development goals in Pakistan. We use the combined mean estimator of the autoregressive distribution lag model and GMM model to determine the long-term relationship between the variables and analyze the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. We found U-shaped environmental Kuznets curves in Pakistan. Further results show long-term relationship using the PMG-ARDL estimator. Our findings indicate the presence of EKC, U-shaped EKC. This means that at a certain level of economic growth, a 1% increase in per capita income can lead to reductions in environmental pollution by 2.88%, 4.54%, and 2.48%. Therefore, governments and policy makers should strengthen policies to reduce environmental pollution and, more importantly, formulate green financing policies to encourage aspiring environmental entrepreneurs to establish environmentally driven enterprises, promote the use of environmental products to reduce environmental problems, and achieve sustainable development in Pakistan.