Green Finance Energy Transition and Critical Raw Materials: An Integrated Framework for Resource Sustainability

The transition toward low-carbon economic systems has increased the strategic importance of green finance while simultaneously intensifying dependence on critical raw materials (CRMs) required for renewable energy technologies, energy storage systems, and electrification infrastructure. Despite the growing relevance of these interconnections, existing research has generally examined green finance, energy transition dynamics, and critical raw material sustainability separately, providing limited evidence on their combined interactions. This study develops an integrated finance–energy–resource framework to investigate the relationships among green finance, energy transition, and CRM sustainability. Using an unbalanced panel dataset covering 32 advanced and emerging economies over the period 2010–2022, the analysis employs the System Generalized Method of Moments (System GMM) estimator to address endogeneity, persistence effects, and unobserved heterogeneity. The empirical framework incorporates indicators of green finance, energy transition, CRM sustainability, and CRM supply risk, together with macroeconomic and institutional control variables. The results indicate that green finance contributes positively to CRM sustainability by supporting sustainable investment, resource efficiency, and environmentally responsible development. At the same time, the expansion of energy transition systems increases demand pressure on critical raw materials and may intensify supply-chain vulnerabilities. The findings further suggest the existence of feedback effects between resource constraints and financial systems through investment risk and capital allocation mechanisms. These results highlight the need for integrated policy approaches that align sustainable finance, energy transition objectives, and critical raw material governance to support long-term sustainability transitions.