In recent years, the debate about the costs, benefits and longer-term implications of growth policy tools has been intensified among policy makers and other stakeholders. Over the past four decades, several theoretical and empirical investigations have been conducted aimed at arriving at the exact relationship between economic growth and environmental quality. Such investigations are particularly important given that achieving growth and development that are sustainable also require due consideration of the impact of those growth policies on the environment. Using a panel dataset from 1985-2010 on 36 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, the study examines the environmental impact of economic growth with greater emphasis on disaggregated growth. Employing the System Generalized Method of Moments to explore the dynamic behaviour of the environment, it was revealed that the effects of industrial and services activities on the quality and sustainability of the environment in Sub-Saharan Africa are ambiguous, mixed and inconclusive as their effects on the environment depend somewhat on how one measures environmental quality and/or sustainability. Agricultural activities however have an unambiguous improving effect on all the measures of environmental degradation, quality and sustainability in the region. Based on these conclusions, the paper offers some policy recommendations.