The Heterogeneous Relationship between Pollution Charges and Enterprise Green Technology Innovation, Based on the Data of Chinese Industrial Enterprises

Mingyue Wang,Zitong Wang,Junqiang Li,Yingming Li

doi:10.3390/en15051663

Abstract

Enterprises’ green technology innovation is critical to achieving the “win-win” of enterprise competitiveness and environmental protection. The impact of environmental regulation on green technology innovation by enterprises has been widely considered, but the conclusion has not yet been determined, and needs to be studied in detail. To this end, we studied the impact of pollution charge policy on different types of green technology innovation by industrial enterprises in China. We found that (1) the impact of pollution charges on most types of green technology innovation by enterprises has increased significantly over time; (2) the pollution charge policy has a certain inhibition effect on the end-of-pipe technology innovation, but can promote the process improvement of reducing industrial wastewater emissions; (3) there is a U-shaped relationship between the pollution charges and some green technological innovation (e.g., emission intensity of SO2, industrial wastewater emission intensity, and industrial wastewater removal intensity), which is dynamically adjusted over time; and (4) the larger the enterprise’s solid assets, the faster the asset depreciation will inhibit the enterprise from adopting the green process innovation strategy.

Highlights

IntroductionIn 2019, China’s GDP reached CNY 99,086.5 billion
Accepted: 17 February 2022In 2019, China’s GDP reached CNY 99,086.5 billion
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, we review the literature on the relationship between pollution charges and green technology innovation

Summary

Introduction

In 2019, China’s GDP reached CNY 99,086.5 billion. Ecological Environment, in 2018, 121 of the 338 cities in China achieved ambient air quality standards, accounting for only 35.8%. Resolving the uncoordinated relationship between economy and environment is an important factor in high-quality development and the construction of ecological civilization [3,4,5]. Enterprises are the core drivers of social and economic wealth creation, and the most critical factors in the coordination of economic development and environmental protection [9,10]. Most of the existing studies on the economic effectiveness of environmental regulation are from the perspective of government and society, while there is little literature investigating micro-enterprises and macro-policy from the system perspective [11,12]. In-depth exploration of how enterprises deal with environmental regulation is of great significance for the implementation of environmental regulation policies and the improvement of the green competitiveness of enterprises

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion