Organizations and Environmental Sustainability in Africa: An Analysis with Implications for the Civil Aviation Sector

As African economies pursue economic growth under increasing environmental pressure, the role of institutional frameworks in promoting environmental sustainability has become increasingly important. This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of economic and regulatory institutions on environmental sustainability in 33 African countries between 2008 and 2022. Using data from the World Governance Indicators, the World Economic Freedom Database, the Global Footprint Network, and the World Development Indicators, the analysis applies the System Generalized Method of Moments to address endogeneity and dynamic persistence. The findings indicate strong persistence in environmental sustainability outcomes. Economic institutions such as government size, legal systems and property rights, sound money, and freedom to trade have a positive and statistically significant effect on environmental sustainability, whereas foreign direct investment is associated with negative environmental outcomes. Regulatory institutions including control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and the rule of law further improve environmental performance. The interaction results show that the effectiveness of economic policies depends heavily on governance quality. Beyond economy wide implications, the findings are also relevant for environmentally sensitive and highly regulated sectors such as civil aviation, where weak institutional capacity can limit the implementation of sustainable aviation policies and alignment with global initiatives such as the International Civil Aviation Organization’s CORSIA framework.