Can enterprise digitization facilitate green technology innovation?

Abstract

Digital economy realizes the win-win situation of energy efficiency and digital economy development by promoting green technology innovation. Digital economy plays an important role in enterprise green innovation and energy efficiency improvement, providing theoretical and practical guidance for China's green sustainable development and dual-carbon goals. This paper explores the impact of digital economy on enterprise green innovation and energy efficiency improvement. The study takes highly polluting listed enterprises in China as the target, and analyzes the implementation effect of the national-level big data comprehensive pilot zone policy by means of panel data and double-difference model from 2010 to 2022. In addition, based on the high-tech industry data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2010 to 2022, a threshold model is constructed and analyzed, showing that the digital economy has a significant positive impact on the green innovation efficiency of enterprises, but there is a nonlinear "U" threshold effect. Active government and effective market have different regulating effects on this process at different stages of development, and differentiated countermeasures need to be taken in light of regional characteristics. In terms of smart city construction, the digital economy has a significant role in promoting green innovation. In terms of energy efficiency improvement, based on the data of 284 prefecture-level cities, the study found that the digital economy, especially industrial digitization, has a significant role in promoting energy efficiency, with an "N"-shaped characteristic.