Interplay between technological innovation and environmental quality: Formulating the SDG policies for next 11 economies

Since the inception of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Next 11 (N11) countries are facing difficulties in attaining the SDG objectives, as maintaining the environmental quality has been a challenge for them. In this study, we have revisited the technology policies of these countries, and in doing so, we have tried to address the problem of environmental degradation, while addressing the issues of sustained economic growth, clean and affordable energy, and quality education. In this pursuit, we have designed two indices for environmental degradation and technological advancement, and then analyzed the association between them following the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. The empirical analysis has been done by IPAT framework, and by using bootstrapped quantile regression and rolling window heterogeneous panel casualty tests, over a period of 1990–2017. Following the results obtained from the analysis, we have tried to address the objectives of SDG 13, SDG 4, SDG 8, SDG 9, SDG 7, and SDG 10.