Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the Belt and Road Initiative: Complexities in innovation, biodiversity, and foreign direct investment

The United Nations has designated 2023 as the year to assess the achievement of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As this milestone approaches, it is crucial to evaluate the progress made by individual countries and economic blocs toward achieving these goals. The study utilizes Fixed Effect (FE), Random Effect (RE) models and the Common Correlated Effect Generalized (CCEG) model based on a dataset (2000–2022) on 16 countries from the Belt and Road Initiative Region to explore the complexities between technological innovations, biodiversity protection and FDI influx. The aim is to shed light on the progress of the efforts towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in the region. The CCEG estimates showed that technological innovation, biocapacity, and forest area significantly contribute to the progress of the SDGs 07, 09 and 13, with FDI influx exhibiting lesser positive effect on the SDGs. The RE model results showed superior outcomes with both the actual and predicted results signaling slow progress in the CO₂ emissions and SDGs outcomes. The uneven outcomes highlight a challenging phenomenon for a collective achievement of the SDGs by 2030, highlighting the need for deliberate individual government intervention in the policies that target specific SDGs. The study suggest that governments should adopt policy initiatives that emphasize on green growth, restoration of biocapacity and green financing, paying particular attention to regions with a high potential for sequestering carbon.