Do economic endeavors complement sustainability goals in the emerging economies of South and Southeast Asia?

Purpose: In the present study, the authors intended to investigate whether the economic growth drivers such as per capita income, financial development, nonrenewable energy solutions and trade expansion have invigorated the level of environmental pollution in the eight developing nations of South and Southeast Asia. Design/methodology/approach: Considering the possibility of the cross-sectional dependency, the authors employed relatively new econometric approaches, that is, the Westerlund cointegration test and cross-sectional augmented distributed lag mean estimation (CS-DL) for the period of 1990–2015. Findings: The simulation results of the study confirmed an N-shaped environmental Kuznets curve, which raised a question on the existing economic policies in these nations. Further, the study reported that the improvements in the financial sector, nonrenewable energy consumption and trade expansion contributed to increasing the level of CO₂ emissions in the long run. Originality/value: Based on the results, the authors intended to provide a unique policy framework because the present policies are generating a trade-off between economic and environmental goals. If the suggested framework is employed across sectors, the given countries may likely achieve the sustainable development goals by 2030.