The Impact Mechanism of Green Credit Policy on the Sustainability Performance of Heavily Polluting Enterprises-Based on the Perspectives of Technological Innovation Level and Credit Resource Allocation

Transitioning to a green economy in China: The environmental and economic impacts of green credit

Economic green transition is the change of economic development mode under environmental constraints; this process will generate huge demand for credit financing. Understanding the connection between credit allocation and environmental performance is crucial for the coordinated development of the economy and environment. Utilizing the Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database, I constructed a city-level green credit index and compiled panel data from 2006 to 2013 for 282 selected cities in China. A spatial model was employed to explore the influence of green credit on the economic green transition. The findings reveal a positive relationship between green credit and economic green transition during the study period. Green credit not only enhances local green total factor productivity but also exerts beneficial impacts on adjacent areas though demonstration effects. Additionally, the reallocation of credit resources and the innovation of clean technologies are identified as key mechanisms through which green credit fosters a greener economy. However, the study also finds that the impact of green credit is moderated by factors such as a high reliance on natural resources, the underdevelopment of market intermediaries, and excessive governmental intervention, which can undermine its effectiveness. Furthermore, the efficacy of green credit exhibits regional heterogeneity; it has a significant positive impact in the eastern regions of China, while its influence appears to be non-significantly positive in the central and western regions. This study enriches the research on the macroeconomic impacts of green credit, offering practical evidence and theoretical support for the implementation of green credit policies by local governments in China.

Exploring the impact mechanism of executives' environmental attention on corporate green transformation: evidence from the textual analysis of Chinese companies' management discussion and analysis

The allocation of executives' environmental attention (EEA) is of great significance in promoting the green upgrading of industrial structures and achieving corporate green transformation. Based on upper echelon theory and the attention-based view, we use panel data of Chinese manufacturing companies from 2015 to 2020 to construct a two-way fixed effects model to explore the impact mechanism of EEA on corporate green transformation performance (CGTP). Baseline regression shows that EEA significantly improves CGTP. The reliability of findings is verified by reducing time windows, replacing the independent variable, expanding the data source, and adding missing variables. In the heterogeneity analysis, the positive effect of EEA on CGTP is significant for eastern companies and does not differ in the property rights grouping. After propensity score matching, environmental attribute grouping shows that the positive effect of EEA on CGTP is more significant for non-heavy polluters. Extended research shows that government subsidies have a positive moderating effect, while female executives play only a symbolic role. Moreover, green innovation activities have positive partial mediating effects. Green innovation is the best way to address environmental pollution and achieve corporate green transformation. Our research provides implications for decision-makers to allocate their attention, and thereby achieve green development appropriately.

Toward carbon neutrality: a bibliometric analysis of technological innovation and global emission reductions

In the context of global carbon neutrality, climate change mitigation and response has become a top priority. Currently, countries around the world are setting emission reduction targets or are already involved in carbon-neutral actions, with technological innovation becoming the key to global emission reduction. Therefore, a systematic review of the literature related to technology innovation and emission reduction in response to carbon-neutral actions for climate change is conducted. A global bibliometric visualization analysis is presented using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software. This study visualizes the basic relationship between global emission reduction and technology-related literature under the carbon neutrality target and analyzes and discusses the spatial distribution and hotspot trends of the co-author network and knowledge base. The results show that (1) the trend of the number of relevant studies can be divided into two phases before and after, and starts to increase gradually after 2020. (2) The structural relationship of the author- and institution-based cooperative networks is relatively loose, and the main cooperative networks, mainly by countries, are initially formed by the key contributions of developed and emerging economies. (3) Relevant research hotspots are reflected in multiple perspectives such as investment, management, and policy, in addition to emission reduction targets and technological innovation itself. The causal relationship between relevant research and economic and political dimensions has become an important driving factor for research development. Especially in the paradigm shift phase, there are research characteristics of human intervention and specific actions. (4) In terms of future trends, research involving policy management, methodological efficiency, and systemic models will become important research paths in the future by matching the supply of actions to real needs.

The Impact of China's ETS on Corporate Green Governance Based on the Perspective of Corporate ESG Performance

To achieve China's "dual carbon" and common prosperity goals, corporate green governance is crucial. A key tool for promoting green growth is environmental legislation, particularly market-based regulation. With China's carbon emission trading as a natural experiment, we adopt the DID method to quantitatively compare the gap between ESG performance of pilot and non-pilot carbon trading enterprises before and after policy implementation, thereby examining the impact, mechanism and optimization conditions of market-based environmental policy on corporate green governance based on panel data of China's A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2019. In addition, PSM-DID and other methods are employed for preventing estimation bias caused by sample self-selection bias. It is found that: (1) the green governance level of pilot firms can be considerably improved by a carbon emission trading scheme (ETS); (2) the ETS primarily encourages enterprises to uphold their ESG obligations through increasing regulatory pressure from the government and corporate involvement in clean innovation; (3) enhancing regional marketization can strengthen the impact of carbon trading policy, and enterprises that are large and non-state-owned exhibit better performance with regard to green governance as a result of carbon trading policy. This paper provides practical experience for promoting corporate green governance to achieve the "dual carbon" goal based on a market mechanism from a micro perspective.