Capitalizing on technological innovations and natural resources rent in alleviating ecological footprint in the Sub-Saharan African countries

Environmental degradation has been and is still a cause of concern in the world, and the Sub-Saharan African Countries (SSAC) are not exceptional. This research seeks to examine the role of technological innovations (in the form of patents) and natural resources rent (NRR) in alleviating the damage presented on the environment by human activities. To attain the goal of this research, the STIRPAT model is adopted, taking into account the patterns of energy consumption, and environmental sustainability policies. The combined time series data of all SSAC is used, for the period 1990 to 2022. The contemporary Non-linear Autoregressive Distributive Lag (NARDL) method is used to analyse data of the present research model. The NARDL method presents the short and long run estimation findings; hence, the existence of asymmetric effects on the dependent variable is ascertained. The key findings of the research show that renewable energy (RE), environmental sustainability policies, non-renewable energy (NRE) and NRR presence significant negative effects on ecological footprint (EFP). Positive shocks of NRR reduces the EFP in the SSAC, both in the short and long run, while the negative shocks do not significantly affect EFP. Economic growth exhibit significant positive symmetric effects on EFP in the SSAC. Policies meant to enhance environmental quality in the SSAC are presented in this research.