Assessing the impact of green technological innovation and human capabilities on renewable energy supply: Evidence from the top-greenest countries

The growing attention given to the levers for the resilience against environmental degradation and the depletion of natural resource endowments, reveals the urgency of resorting to renewable energy sources. Despite the importance of energy saving catalysts, few existing studies have examined the role of human capital and green technological facets in the renewable energy generation. This research aims to examine the repercussions of human capabilities and green technological innovation on renewable energy supply (REN) in the context of the top greenest countries (TGC). For this purpose, we applied the panel discrete threshold regression model and the Logistic Panel Smooth threshold regression (LPSTR) to the case of 10 TGC over the period 1998-2019. Our findings revealed that human capital (HC) and green innovation (GI) have beneficial effects on renewable energy generation in countries with lower levels of GI. However, in countries with higher levels of GI, these factors have negative effects. Similarly, GI positively affects renewable energy production only under a low GI regime. On the other hand, the use of the Internet is found to be beneficial in boosting REN in countries with higher levels of GI and under a high GI regime. Additionally, our findings suggest that the human capital index facilitates renewable energy generation when it interacts with environment-related technology, but only under a high GI regime. These findings can provide valuable insights for decision-makers in TGC on how to leverage human and green technological facets to implement the most appropriate energy-saving policies. The outcomes of the study emphasize the need for policy makers to implement strategies of adequacy between human capacities, ICTs on the one hand, and GI on the other hand, to accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources.