To maintain economic and environmental sustainability, the study examines the influence of five major factors affecting renewable energy consumption. These five major factors include financial development, environmental pollution, innovation, economic freedom, and real GDP per capita in the ASEAN +3 economies during 1998-2018. By testing five hypotheses via the panel ARDL analysis and the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test, several interesting results were revealed. The results confirmed that financial expansion does not play a major role in the impacts on renewable energy consumption. Also, environmental pollution and economic freedom have a negative correlation with renewable energy consumption. However, the relationship between innovation and real GDP with renewable energy is positive. The results suggest that the ASEAN+3 group should reinforce strategies that support renewable energy projects to achieve economic and environmental sustainability. The study provides some recommendations for ASEAN +3 economies that can help them promote strategies that support renewable energy projects that maintain the economic and environmental sustainability. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.