Purpose – this paper aims to ground an extended model of sustainable regional development, which would serve as an instrument to estimate and, ultimately, minimize the harmful impact of ecological threats on sustainable economic development.

Research methodology – Ecological Carrying Capacity (ECC) concept needs to be applied; chosen “COVID19” is as a valid sample of ecological pressure on regions to study its harmful impact on one of the ecological resource “GDP” for the vital group G20 countries that control 75% of the world’s GDP. Secondary data were collected from the Passport database’s Macro model for evaluations and predictions.

Findings – GDP drop due to COVID19 in developed countries is higher than the developing countries of the G20 group, indicating the need to utilize the global sustainability EGB model instead of the SLB model.

Research limitations – considering one macro model indicator (GDP), which could be enhanced by including other indicators.

Practical implications – the obtained results promote a consistent reaction pattern of GDP growth with ecological threats in differently developed countries to devise economic policies on how to mitigate these threats’ globally.

Originality/Value – previous studies mainly focused on identifying ecological threats, whereas our study studied how to measure these threats’ harmful impact on countries’ economies.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/cibmee.2021.594