<p>Vietnam’s rapid economic growth has precipitated increasing environmental degradation, raising concerns about sustainable development. This study employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and annual data from 1992 to 2023 to empirically investigate the dynamic interplay between economic (Gross Domestic Product - GDP), resource (Total Natural Resource Rents), energy (Renewable Energy Consumption), and social (Human Development Index - HDI) factors on CO₂ emissions. The Bounds test results robustly confirm the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship among these variables. Short-run analysis reveals that economic expansion and the lagged effects of natural resource exploitation exert upward pressure on CO₂ emissions. Notably, while the immediate impact of HDI improvement is a statistically significant reduction in CO₂ emissions, the subsequent lags of HDI exhibit a positive correlation with emissions. Renewable energy consumption demonstrates no statistically significant impact in the short term. Critically, in the long run, all investigated drivers—GDP growth, financial development, renewable energy consumption, natural resource rents, and HDI—exhibit statistically significant negative impacts on CO₂ emissions. These findings lend strong support to the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, suggesting a potential for environmental improvement at higher stages of development following an initial period of degradation. This research provides robust empirical evidence for Vietnamese policymakers striving to balance economic development imperatives with environmental sustainability objectives.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>