Impact of the Belt and Road initiative on enterprise green transformation

Abstract

The Belt and Road initiative (BRI) has created a peaceful and stable surrounding environment for green transformation of enterprises. The data from Chinese listed enterprises from 2010 to 2022 were used, this article overcomes the limitations of the traditional causal inference model, and uses the dual machine learning model to explore the influence of the BRI on enterprises green transformation. Study shows that the BRI can greatly boost enterprises green transformation, and multiple robustness tests have verified its rationality. The mechanism test reveals that BRI promotes green transformation through three channels: promoting green technology spillovers, optimizing enterprise resource allocation and enhancing green governance capabilities. The BRI contributes more to fostering the green transformation of private enterprises, non-high polluting enterprises and large-scale enterprises according to heterogeneity tests. Further analysis found that the BRI had no obvious impact on enterprise performance, and it promoted enterprises to fulfill their ESG responsibilities.