Can Natural Resources, Eco‐Trade, and Environmental Policy Stringency Enhance Ecological Sustainability in Emerging Economies?

ABSTRACT Emerging economies' pursuit of rapid economic growth remains deeply resource‐intensive and is often constrained by weak environmental regulations, locking them into unsustainable development pathways. Given this backdrop, this study investigates how natural resources rents (NRR), environmental goods trade (EG), and environmental policy stringency index (EPSI) interact to shape ecological footprint (EFP) across emerging economies. Drawing on resource curse and ecological modernization theories, the analysis employs panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) robustness checks, and panel quantile regression to capture both dynamic and distributional effects. The findings affirm the resource curse hypothesis that NRR consistently degrades EFP, while EG trade alleviates ecological pressures through technological diffusion and cleaner production. Paradoxically, EPSI exacerbates EFP due to policy‐implementation gaps and resource‐intensive industrial structures. Thus, the findings highlight the need for synergistic environmental policy enforcement, eco‐trade expansion, and green innovation to foster sustainable growth with SDG‐7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG‐13 (Climate Action), and the COP‐28 climate agenda.