Although some recent papers have explored the impacts of external debt on environmental sustainability, the impacts of external debt on the load capacity factor (LCF) have been ignored. In this regard, this work aims to examine the influence of renewable energy, FDI, and external debt on the LCF in Brazil over the period 1970–2021; this indicator implies the country’s strength to promote the population based on current lifestyles. This paper uses the novel augmented autoregressive distributive lag (A-ARDL) technique. The findings from the A-ARDL show that renewable energy positively influenced ecological sustainability by promoting the LCF by 0.451% in the short run and 0.038% in the long run. In addition, the findings show that an increase in the rent of natural resources promotes the LCF. In contrast, the outcomes illustrate that an increase in the external debt led to an adverse impact on ecological sustainability by decreasing the level of LCF by 0.093% in the short run and 0.162% in the long run. Furthermore, the findings demonstrated that FDI negatively affects the ecological sustainability quality by reducing the LCF in the country. The study provides beneficial recommendations to policymakers in Brazil for achieving sustainable development in Brazil.

Since South Africa is in pursuit of accomplishing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, it has become pertinent to accelerate the desired energy transition. Against this background, this work aims to evaluate the effects of oil prices, fiscal policy, and foreign direct investment on renewable energy consumption in South Africa from 1979 to 2019. Using the novel Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach, this study finds that economic growth and taxation revenues positively promote renewable energy in South Africa. In contrast, the findings show that an increase in oil prices has a negative impact on renewable energy in both short and long periods. Likewise, the research shows that foreign direct investment was not found to enhance renewable energy. The findings from fully modified-OLS, dynamic ordinary least squares, and canonical cointegrating regression models corroborate the findings of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag method. For the Granger causality inference, the findings demonstrate that there is a one-way causal connection detected from economic growth to the consumption of renewable energy. Based on these outcomes, a policy framework has been offered to help South Africa to attain the sustainable development goals.