Despite the fact that previous studies have extensively investigated the renewable energy-growth nexus,those studies have not considered the role of technological innovation. This study examines the rela-tionship between renewable energy consumption, technological innovation, economic growth, and CO2emissions in the four Nordic countries by constructing a vector autoregression (VAR) model. On the basisof a modified version of the Granger non-causality test, the results show a unidirectional causality run-ning from renewable energy to CO2emissions for Denmark and Finland and a bidirectional causalitybetween these variables for Sweden and Norway. The findings also indicate a unidirectional causalityrunning from technological innovation to renewable energy and from growth to renewable energy forthe four Nordic countries. The results could not confirm any causality from renewable energy to growth.Three policy implications are offered: (i) renewable energy improves environmental well-being, (ii) theNordic countries have very low energy intensities and high energy efficiencies, and (iii) technologicalinnovation plays an effective role in the renewable energy-growth nexus.© 2016 Elsevier