The present research examines the effect of nuclear energy consumption, financial globalization, nuclear energy technology research and development (R&D) budget on the environmental quality in the context of France. The load capacity factor (LCF) is employed as a novel proxy for environmental sustainability, explaining how human actions affect environmental sustainability and how nature compensates human induced damage. Using the novel approach of Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag, the findings of this study show that: (i) the load capacity curve (LCC) hypothesis is valid (ii) Nuclear energy consumption and nuclear energy technology R&D promote the environmental quality by increasing LCF. (iii) The financial globalization (overall, de jure, and de facto) has a positive influence on LCF , suggesting the positive role of financial globalization in boosting environmental sustainability in France. This study presents vital policy implications that can assist policymakers in France in achieving their environmental sustainability objectives.
Almassri et al. (2026) studied this question.