The driving factors in the corporate proactivity of carbon emissions abatement: Empirical evidence from China

Abstract

The abatement of carbon emissions is an important way to alleviate global warming. It is therefore crucial to explore the factors behind the corporate proactivity of carbon emissions abatement (CPCEA). However, existing research mainly focused on the factors that promote national, provincial, city-level, and industrial carbon emissions reduction, without looking at the micro-company level. In response to the research gap, this study therefore explored the drivers of CPCEA using panel data from 736 listed companies in China. This study used the logit regression to examine the effects of pre-identified factors on the CPCEA. The results indicated that political ties, corporate scale, industry category, and regional disparity have significant impacts on the CPCEA. Contrary to expectations, environmental regulation was not found to affect CPCEA. Based on the findings of this study, five policy implications to improve CPCEA in China were proposed. This paper presented empirical evidence to promote CPCEA. Additionally, the results have important practical implications and priority guide for carbon emissions reduction in China and around the world.