Exploring innovative digital strategies for sustainable development: Addressing challenges of mineral resource scarcity

Achieving energy conservation and emission reduction for sustainable development is crucial given the limitations of mineral resources. This study evaluates the energy carbon performance, energy performance and carbon performance of Chinese 265 cities from 2009 to 2019 and focuses on the effect of a digital strategy on it by using the national big data pilot (NBDP) policy as a quasi-natural experiment, and reaches some novel and interesting conclusions. First, the construction of the policy improved the energy carbon performance, energy performance and carbon performance of the pilot cities, with a greater effect on carbon performance than energy performance. In other words, the development of big data is beneficial for energy conservation and emission reduction. Second, the policy can improve energy carbon performance by alleviating capital market distortion, but this effect can hardly be played in labor market. This indirectly reflects some inherent flaws in China's household and school registration systems, and the resulting big data skill bias effect. Finally, there is heterogeneity in the impact of the policy on energy conservation and emission reduction, which is more positive in cities north of the Qinling-Huaihe Line and in resource-based cities. The above findings provide a theoretical basis and inspiration for the implementation of digital strategies and sustainable development in China and other countries.