RESEARCH ARTICLE Does information and communication technologies improve environmental quality in the era of globalization? An empirical analysis Abdul Haseeb 1 & Enjun Xia 1 & Shah Saud 1 & Ashfaq Ahmad 2 & Hamid Khurshid 3 Received: 1 October 2018 /Accepted: 18 January 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract This study intends to examine the impact of ICTs (i.e., internet usage and mobile cellular subscriptions), globalization, electricity consumption, financial development, and economic growth on environmental quality by using 1994–2014 panel data of BRICS economies. This study employed a second-generation panel unit root test accounting for the presence of cross-sectional dependence and indicated that carbon dioxide emissions, electricity consumption, financial development, internet usage, mobile usage, globaliza- tion, and economic growth have integration of order one. The results from Westerlund panel co-integration test confirms that the variables are co-integrated and revealed that ICT-finance-globalization-electricity-GDP-CO 2 nexus has long-run equilibrium relation- ship. The results from dynamic seemingly unrelated regression (DSUR) indicate that internet usage and mobile cellular subscriptions (ICTs) have significant, adverse impact on carbon dioxide emissions. To put it simply, ICT positively contributes towards environ- mental quality. Similarly, economic growth also has an adverse effect on carbon dioxide emissions. On the other hand, electricity consumption, globalization, and financial development have a significant positive effect on carbon emissions. In addition, Granger causality test results show the presence of a bidirectional causal relationship between internet usage and environmental quality, financial development and electricity consumption, ICT and financial development, mobile cellular subscription and globalization, economic growth and environmental quality, and internet usage and economic growth. A unidirectional causal link is detected running from mobile cellular subscriptions towards environmental quality, ICT towards electricity consumption, financial development towards environmental quality, globalization towards environmental quality, and globalization towards economic growth. Moreover, time series analysis has also been done in this study to analyze the findings for each of BRICS countries which are directed towards important policy implications. For instance, ICT policy can play an integral part in improving environmental quality policy. Keywords Environmental quality . Dynamic seemingly unrelated regression (DSUR) . ICTs . Internet usage . Mobile cellular subscriptions . Globalization Introduction In the era of globalization, the rapid growth in the usage of information and telecommunication technology (ICT) leads to enhance productivity and energy efficiency in different sectors of an economy over the past three decades. However, its effect on the environment is still inconclusive and cannot be ignored in the ICT-environmental debate. Some studies support the positive impact of ICT on environmental quality by mitigating greenhouse gas emissions (Ishida 2014; Chavanne et al. 2015; Mathiesen et al. 2015); whereas on the other hand, some other studies found that the rapid growth of ICT usage exert pressure on electricity consumption (Salahuddin and Alam 2015), resulting in high global emissions (Hamdi et al. 2014 ) which have effect on environmental quality. Worldwide ICT products and services caused high electricity consumption from 3.9 to 4.6% during 2007 to 2012 (Van Heddeghem et al. 2014). The trend of worldwide ICT contri- bution in GDP growth is mixed (i.e., upward and downward) from 2005 to 2014 which can also be shown in Fig. 1. Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues * Abdul Haseeb abdulhaseeb5288@outlook.com 1 School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China 2 Department of Economics, Government College Women University, Sialkot, Pakistan 3 Department of Management, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-04296-x