Recently, practitioners have paid momentous attention to climate change and have proposed interesting themes to address these growing challenges. However, a practical study is needed to provide a clear message to policy analysts about the real challenges and solutions. Thereupon, the present work attempts to break this suspense and portrays key problems and their best alternatives for 24 OECD economies covering the period of 2012–2023. As part of an empirical strategy, this study uses reliable estimators and obtains straightforward outcomes. For example, it finds total factor productivity, population aging, circular economy, and environmental tax revenue as leading problems to ecological sustainability. In lieu, digital transformation and sustainable innovations knowingly help to tackle those sustainability matters. Also, this work determines the green role of digital transformation and artificial intelligence in environmental sustainability. The results illustrate a decay in emissions by 0.1538 and 0.0025, validating the robust role of digital transformation in environmental management. Finally, the green implications are suggested to minimize sustainability problems.