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Adverse changes in environmental conditions due to unprecedented industrialization have been attracting the attention of policymakers, researchers, and activists. For developing nations like Pakistan, sustainability issues become even more severe because of unplanned growth and lack of resources. In this study, we have applied the QARDL model to analyze the impact of renewable energy, institutional quality, tourism, and GDP on the ecological footprint in Pakistan from 1995 to 2017. The results of this study suggest that increased utilization of renewable energy and tourism improve the environment in Pakistan, whereas institutional quality and GDP are positive and significant at all quantiles, revealing that upsurge in GDP and institutional quality are directly related to environmental conditions at all the quantiles. These results also validate the presence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve in Pakistan. The government of Pakistan can play a notable part in attaining sustainability by efficient management of the environment through promoting sustainable tourism, utilization of renewable energy, and enhancement of institutional quality., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Sustainability concerns are increasing globally. Besides, in Pakistan, these concerns are increasing day by day due to lack of education as well as redundancy among human capital, depletion of natural resources and economic growth can lead to pose severe threats to the environment. To address this concern, this study examines the phenomena that in what way natural resources, human capital, and economic growth affect two important indicators i.e., ecological footprint and carbon emission in Pakistan from 1985 to 2018 by using the dynamic autoregressive distribution lag (DARDL) approach. The outcomes of the analysis indicate that in the long run human capital and natural resource has a negative link with carbon emission whereas economic growth has a positive link with carbon emission. On the other side, in the short run, human capital and economic growth have a positive link with carbon emission while natural resources have a negative link with carbon emission. Moreover, in the long and short-run human capital and economic growth has a positive link with ecological footprint whereas natural resources have a negative link with the ecological footprint. However, the results of this study also revealed the presence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in Pakistan. Moreover, creating awareness among the citizens together with governmental regulatory pressures might help in solving the problems related to the environment resulting in preserving the sustainability of future generations in Pakistan., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)