Environmental Regulations and Corporate Green Innovation in China: The Role of City Leaders' Promotion Pressure.

Le Yang,Yufeng Zhang,Jiahao Zhang

doi:10.3390/ijerph18157774

Abstract

China and other emerging market countries have suffered from the problem of environmental pollution while developing rapidly in the past few decades. In recent years, many countries have introduced strict environmental regulations in order to achieve sustainable development. This paper discusses the relationship between environmental regulations and corporate green innovation from the perspective of regional leaders’ promotion pressure. The empirical results show that direct policy regulation within the region stimulates green innovation on the part of enterprises, and the promotion pressure of city leaders has a further positive moderating effect on the positive correlation between environmental regulations and enterprises’ green innovation. The conclusion of the study proves that a strict environmental policy can promote the effectiveness of an environmental performance appraisal system in the sustainable development plans of cities and enterprises. This paper not only reveals the influence path of official promotion pressure on the sustainable development of enterprises in the administrative area from the micro perspective but also sheds some light that may improve government governance and promote the transformation of enterprises.

Highlights

China, as an emerging market country, needs to quickly address its backward economic situation
After theoretical analysis and discussion, this paper proposes two research hypotheses: “environmental regulation promotes the green innovation of enterprises” and “the pressure on city leaders increases their promotion of environmental regulations and green innovation for enterprises”
The results of the baseline regression show that environmental regulation promotes green innovation, confirming Hypothesis 2 (H2)

Summary

Introduction

China chose a rough and unsustainable route of development in the early stage of its economic development [1]. In the early stage of the reform and opening-up that began in the 1970s, various regions of China blindly pursued economic benefits, taking. GDP as the most important factor for assessing the success of a government administration. Such unsustainable development (blindly pursuing economic benefits) has had an irreversible impact on the environment [2]. With the continuous growth of China’s economy, this unsustainable growth mode of sacrificing the environment for the economy is no longer sustainable [3,4]. The Chinese central government is paying more and more attention to sustainable development that balances the environment and the economy [6]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion