Bio-capacity dynamics in BRICS countries: assessing the role of economic and political globalization and renewable energy through panel quantile regression

The establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has intensified scholarly debate on globalization’s capacity to mitigate environmental degradation by 2030. BRICS nations occupy a pivotal position in this discourse, given the complex interplay between their economic expansion, political integration, demographic pressures, and renewable energy transitions. This study examines the effects of economic globalization, political globalization, renewable energy consumption, population density, digitalization, and GDP inflows on bio-capacity across five BRICS economies over 1991–2021. The primary study model is panel quantile regression, supplemented by robust regression, which captures heterogeneous effects across the full conditional distribution of bio-capacity. Preliminary diagnostics cross-sectional dependence, second-generation unit root, and Westerlund cointegration tests confirm the appropriateness of this approach. Results reveal that economic globalization, political globalization, and renewable energy consumption significantly enhance bio-capacity, with effects most pronounced at higher quantiles, indicating that ecologically endowed economies benefit disproportionately from global integration and clean energy transitions. Conversely, population density, digitalization, and GDP growth consistently exert negative pressure on bio-capacity across all quantiles. Based on these findings, policymakers should introduce differentiated renewable energy subsidies targeting high-density regions, restructure economic growth governance to redirect transfers toward green investments, align digitalization strategies with energy-efficient and sustainable infrastructure, and leverage BRICS multilateral cooperation for environmental technology transfer and climate finance mobilization. This study contributes novel, quantile-sensitive empirical evidence on the heterogeneous determinants of bio-capacity in major emerging economies, informing more nuanced environmental governance strategies.