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Currently, digital transformation is having various impacts on enterprises around the world, including the green innovation. However, the current literature on the relationship between digitalization and green innovation in enterprises is scarce. What is the relationship between them, and whether heterogeneous environmental regulation has mediating effects, are questions that are worth exploring. Using a sample of listed manufacturing enterprises in China, this paper empirically tests the impact of digital transformation on enterprise green innovation. The results show that: (1) Digital transformation has a significant positive impact on green innovation, including green innovation output and green innovation capability. (2) Diverse environmental regulation may have mediating effects of digital transformation's influence on green innovation. (3) After a number of robustness tests, the conclusions are still valid. This paper can provide a reference for developing green development strategies for manufacturing enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of urbanization has brought new challenges to the ecological environment, and the promotion of green technology innovation and development is widely recognized as an essential method to achieve cities' economic benefits and environmental protection. This paper examines whether the new urbanization pilot policies (NUP) increase green technology innovation (GTI) from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This paper examines the impact of new urbanization on GTI by analyzing data from 285 cities in China between 2010 and 2021, using the multi-period DID model with the implementation of NUP as an exogenous policy shock. The study results indicate that NUP significantly affects GTI, and the conclusion still holds after the parallel trend test, placebo test, and other robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the NUP significantly enhances GTI in low environmental pollution, non-resource-based, Medium-sized, and Central Region cities. The test of moderating effect shows that NUP has a "linkage effect" with the government's environmental attention, financial investment in innovation, and regional talent pooling. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence and decision-making reference for promoting NUP and sustainable development of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simultaneously achieving economic development and environmental protection is a shared global challenge. While the positive effect of environmental regulations on protecting the environment has been widely recognized, the attention paid to low-carbon governance and corporate green transformation remains insufficient. Based on the two-stage least square regression model (2SLS) of instrumental variables, this paper utilizes panel data from China to identify the influence mechanism of government low-carbon governance on enterprise green development. It explores the effect of low-carbon governance on enterprise green development from the perspective of fiscal decentralization. The findings show that (1) Low-carbon governance significantly promotes corporate green development, primarily through improving industrial structure and technological innovation; (2) Low-carbon governance notably promotes the green development of private enterprises but has little effect on state-owned enterprises. There are also geographical differences, and the results are better in Eastern China than in the Central and Western parts of China; (3) Fiscal decentralization at both central and local levels inhibits the effect of low-carbon governance on driving corporate green development by causing a mismatch of human resources. Therefore, to promote corporate green development, low-carbon governance must prioritize green development, actively guide industrial structural upgrading and enterprise technological innovation, implement differentiated low-carbon governance measures tailored to different ownership enterprises, and optimize the assessment indicators for fiscal decentralization. This paper helps deepen the understanding of the relationship between government low-carbon governance and enterprise green development in developing countries. It can be used as a reference for government departments to formulate relevant policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of green finance reform and innovation (GFRI) pilot zone is an important measure of the Chinese government to urge enterprises to develop green transformation. This paper explores the impact of pilot policies in the GFRI pilot zone on corporate environmental investment. Based on 819 A-share listed enterprises from 2010 to 2020, our staggered difference-in-differences (staggered DID) estimation documents revealed that enterprises in the GFRI pilot zone significantly increased the corporate environmental investment efficiency but reduced the scale of corporate environmental investment.This conclusion remained robust after Propensity Scores Matching difference-in-differences (PSM-DID), replacing dependent variables, and shortening the time window. We contend that the increased research and development (R&D) expenditure and technological innovation are the potential mechanisms at work. Heterogeneity analysis showed that the establishment of GFRI improved the environmental investment efficiency of polluting enterprises but had no effect on green enterprises.Meanwhile, the effect of GFRI exhibited heterogeneity in the type of enterprise ownership. This paper evaluates the implementation effect of GFRI from the perspective of corporate environmental investment, and provides theoretical support and an empirical basis for green finance policy to serve China's green economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid evolution of the digital economy has significantly accelerated progress towards achieving green and sustainable processes, particularly in the field of green production. While existing research has delved into the effects of the digital economy on Green Innovation (GI) and the consequences of digital transformation on Corporate Value (CV), there remains a notable gap in the literature regarding the potential for synergistic enhancements in firms' GI&CV through the ongoing digital revolution. This study utilizes an evolutionary game model and employs system dynamics methods to simulate the dynamic evolution trajectory of the influence of the digital economy on the synergy between GI&CV. Subsequently, it empirically assesses the interconnected synergies between GI&CV using a dataset comprising information from Chinese listed firms spanning from 2011 to 2020, examining the impact of the digital economy on these synergies. Moreover, the study delves into the analysis of the transmission mechanism and conducts an extended investigation to further explore this phenomenon. The findings of this paper including: (1) The digital economy acts as a driving force behind the synergistic enhancement of firm GI&CV. Moreover, this effect is further augmented by governmental environmental regulation and green subsidy policies. (2) Drawing upon the information asymmetry theory and the resource-based theory, the regional marketization level and firms' digital transformation play intermediary roles. (3) The heterogeneity test indicate that firms situated in eastern regions and those classified as non-heavily polluted benefitted to a greater extent. This study sheds light on the incentive implications of digital economy for the synergistic upgrading of GI&CV, thereby extending the breadth of study on the consequences of digital economy. Moreover, it offers actionable suggestions for enterprises to leverage digital economy development towards achieving a synergistic improvement of GI&CV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing carbon emission intensity is crucial for achieving sustainable development. Carbon emission intensity is expressively affected by the issuance of green bonds. Thus, it is imperative to assess the influence of green bond issuance on carbon emissions and examine their correlation. Such research holds great potential to expedite the overhaul and modernization of businesses and to construct a circular economy system. This paper uses the spatial Durbin model to draw empirical conclusions by using data from 26 provinces in China between 2016 and 2021. Firstly, under different spatial matrices, it has been analyzed that an increase of 1% in the issuance of green bonds leads to a reduction of 0.306% or 0.331% in carbon emission intensity. It shows that green bonds have the potential to substantially reduce carbon intensity. Additionally, the intensity of emissions in the current period is driven by the intensity of emissions in the previous period. Secondly, the analysis of mediated transmission suggests that green bonds can ultimately reduce carbon emission intensity by changing the energy consumption structure or improving the efficiency of green technology innovation. Thirdly, the analysis of heterogeneity shows that the inhibitory effect of green bond issuance on carbon emissions is stronger in less economically developed regions than in economically developed regions. There is a significant inhibitory effect of green bond issuance in neighboring provinces on local carbon emission intensity. This effect is present only in provinces in less economically developed regions and not in economically developed regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental public interest litigation (EPIL) is a significant part of the judicial system; it is aimed at strengthening judicial protections and safeguarding public interests. Based on the quasi-natural experimental setting of China's EPIL pilot project, this study examines the impact of EPIL on the country's urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE). The findings show that effectively implementing EPIL enhances ULGUE. Specifically, this policy has led to a 6.6% increase in ULGUE in pilot cities, and its impact has grown stronger over time. Mechanism analysis results show that EPIL mainly enhances ULGUE by strengthening environmental supervision and law enforcement, by increasing public participation in environmental governance, and by promoting green innovation and industrial structure upgrades. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis revealed that the positive effects of this policy implementation are more pronounced in resource-based cities, cities with open environmental information, and cities with high marketization. This paper provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of environmental governance via EPIL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving green innovation efficiency (GIE) is the key to achieve high-quality economic development in China, and the introduction of foreign direct investment (FDI) has become an important path choice to promote the GIE. Based on the data of 30 provinces in China, this paper explores the linear and nonlinear effects of FDI on GIE from both quantity and quality perspectives, and further analyzes the mediating role of environmental regulation level. The results show that: (1) From 2011 to 2020, the GIE of all provinces in China generally shows an upward trend. (2) The quantity and quality of FDI have a significant positive impact on the improvement of GIE in China's provinces, and this impact has regional heterogeneity. (3) The quantity and quality of FDI can promote the improvement of GIE in China through the level of environmental regulation (ER). (4) With the level of knowledge accumulation and GIE as the threshold variables, the quantity and quality of FDI have a single threshold effect on the GIE of China's provinces. The conclusions of this study provide some policy implications for local governments to make full use of FDI to perform green innovation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental pollution has become a pressing global issue, severely threatening human health and ecosystems. As an emerging driver of economic development in countries worldwide, the digital economy (DE) has the potential to enhance resource utilization efficiency and promote the development of clean technologies, thereby reducing environmental pollution. Based on the panel data of 267 cities in China from 2012 to 2021, the spatial econometric model is used to test the impact of DE on environmental pollution. The mediating effect model is used to explore the transmission mechanism of DE affecting environmental pollution. The panel threshold model is used to examine the threshold effect of marketization. The results are as follows: (1) DE can significantly reduce environmental pollution. The conclusion is still valid after conducting robustness tests such as selecting historical data as instrumental variables and the "Broadband China" pilot as a quasi-natural experiment. (2) From the perspective of transmission mechanism, DE can reduce environmental pollution through green technology innovation and industrial structure upgrading. (3) From the perspective of spatial spillover effect, DE can reduce the environmental pollution level of surrounding cities. (4) From the perspective of threshold effect, DE has obvious market-oriented single threshold effect on environmental pollution. When the marketization level crosses the threshold of 11.6611, the emission reduction effect of DE is significant. (5) From the perspective of heterogeneity, DE has a heterogeneous impact on environmental pollution in cities with different geographic locations, resource endowments and administrative level. Regarding geographical heterogeneity, DE can effectively reduce environmental pollution in eastern and central regions, but has no significant impact on environmental pollution in western regions. Regarding the heterogeneity of resource endowment, compared to non-resource-based cities, resource-based cities suffer more from the negative effects of DE on their environment. Regarding the heterogeneity of administrative levels, compared with non-central cities, the DE of central cities has a greater emission reduction effect. Based on empirical results, this paper proposes strategic recommendations in areas such as enhancing the application of DE in emission reduction, upgrading industrial structures, promoting green technology innovation, and improving the level of marketization. This study not only enriches the research of DE and environmental pollution, but also provides a reference for the formulation of environmental pollution control policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technology innovation is an effective means to achieve high-quality economic development. The impact and mechanism of digital financial inclusion on regional green technology innovation are tested using a threshold regression model and the panel fixed effect model, based on China's provincial Panel data (provincial Panel data are regional annual report data) from 2011 to 2020. According to the study, there is a direct link between local green technology innovation and digital financial inclusion. This paper highlights the differences in their influence by location and usage depth and underscores the necessity of government engagement to improve these characteristics. Information infrastructure needs to be strengthened, especially in areas with gaps. Greater investment in research and development (R&D) indirectly supports regional green technology innovation since it is impacted by digital financial inclusion. Interestingly, a threshold effect becomes most noticeable when digital financial inclusion rises above a particular threshold. Promoting utilizing digital financial inclusion to lessen regional differences in green technology innovation is important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]