Rapid modernization and industrialization have significantly intensified carbon emissions and worsened environmental sustainability around the globe. Despite the significant importance of green innovation, clean energy consumption, and education in every aspect of life, the role of all these variables in determining environmental sustainability has not been explored quite extensively in case of China. Under this premise, the present study aims to investigate the role of green innovation, clean energy investment, and education on environmental sustainability in highly polluted Asian economies for the period of 1991–2019 by employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The findings infer that increase in green innovation reduces CO2 emissions in China, India, and Japan in the long-run. However, an increase in clean energy investment and education tends to decline CO2 emissions in Russia and Japan. The findings confirm that green innovation, clean energy investment, and education improve environmental sustainability in long-run, while short-run estimates are diverse. Thus, governments of highly polluted economies should increase investment in education, clean energy, and technology to mitigate CO2 emissions.