Country groups in global transnational environmental investments to achieve sustainable development goals
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GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
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PUBLIC SUMMARY
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Transnational environmental investments explain 6% variance in SDGs across 130 countries.
Investment impacts vary by socioeconomic status, resources, and funding, categorizing nations into six groups.
Customized strategies per group are crucial to promote equity and accelerate SDG achievement by 2030.
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ABSTRACT
Transnational environmental investments aim to narrow the gap among developing countries in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Despite their importance, how these investments are associated with SDG performance is largely unknown. Using data for 10 SDGs and 130 countries, we analyzed transnational environmental investments toward achieving SDGs globally. We found significant positive correlations between such investments and individual or composite SDG indicators. Transnational environmental investments accounted for 6.4% of the variance in SDG performance, correlating with the achievement of sustainable development in 56.9% of countries. These correlations, however, varied across countries, which we identified and categorized into six main country groups based on socioeconomic and natural resource contexts and in the amount of investment received. Our results indicate that policies should focus on enhancing environmental investments, balancing the distribution of investments among countries, and optimizing the trade-offs associated with investing and achieving SDGs within each country group. Our research provides novel insights into the potential of transnational environmental investment to promote equity among countries and accelerate progress toward sustainable development by 2030. -
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Zhou C., Feng X., Maestre F., et al. (2025). Country groups in global transnational environmental investments to achieve sustainable development goals. The Innovation Geoscience 3:100138. https://doi.org/10.59717/j.xinn-geo.2025.100138
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Zhou C., Feng X., Maestre F., et al. (2025). Country groups in global transnational environmental investments to achieve sustainable development goals. The Innovation Geoscience 3:100138. https://doi.org/10.59717/j.xinn-geo.2025.100138
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Figure 1.
Components used in analyzing the association between transnational environmental investment and the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across countries.
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Figure 2.
Trends in transnational environmental investment and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) from 2002 to 2018.
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Figure 3.
Variations among countries in the contribution of transnational environmental investments to sustainable development goals (SDGs)
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Figure 4.
SDGct explained by transnational environmental investments in each country
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Figure 5.
The correlation between sustainable development goals (SDGs) and transnational environmental investment within each country group
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Figure 6.
Environmental conditions, resource context, and socioeconomic development level for each country group
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Figure 7.
Average level and trend of economic development across the six identified country groups
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