Heavy Polluting Industries Research Articles

Corporate Sustainable Development, Corporate Environmental Performance and Cost of Debt

High environmental performance of enterprises may reduce financing costs, while good environmental performance can promote sustainable development of enterprises. Therefore, this paper examines the impact mechanism of China’s corporate environmental performance on financing costs, and whether corporate sustainable development plays a regulatory role in the research of heavy pollution industries. This study is conducted through the Breusch and Pagan Lagrange multiplier test for random effects and the Hausman test to determine whether to adopt Fixed-effects regression or Random-effects GLS regression as an estimation method to control individual effects and endogenous problems brought by time. By collecting the samples of listed companies in China from 2010 to 2021, the empirical results show that corporate environmental performance is negatively related to financing costs. Sustainable development, as a moderator variable, is negatively related to financing costs and has weakened the inhibition of corporate environmental performance on financing costs. Although the existing literature shows that environmental performance will lead to changes in debt costs, this study has made contributions to the literature by revealing the sustainable development mechanism in the relationship between corporate environmental performance and financing costs and has verified that sustainable development is one of the important factors affecting financing costs.

The influence of environmental tax reform on corporate profit margins-based on the empirical research of the enterprises in the heavy pollution industries.

The deteriorating global environment has attracted wide attention in various countries. How to curb environmental pollution and achieve sustainable economic growth has become an urgent problem that we must face. As an effective tool for pollution control, environmental tax has been implemented in many developed countries and has achieved good results. As the largest developing country in the world, China introduced the first environmental tax law in its history in December 2016, which is regarded as a major reform of the green tax system. To explore the implementation effect of environmental tax in China, this paper takes 3867 Chinese listed enterprises (2015-2020) in Shanghai and Shenzhen A shares as the research sample and explores the microeconomic effect of environmental tax reform using the difference in difference (DID) method. It is concluded that the environmental tax reform can produce a positive impact on the corporate profit margins while curbing the enterprise pollution behavior. This positive effect comes from the investment improvement effect and the cost-saving effect, and this effect is heterogeneous between different regions and property rights enterprises. Therefore, the design of the tax system must be implemented with different measures. Environmental taxes have achieved positive policy results in China, contributing to sustainable economic growth. This tax reform has an important reference value for the developing countries in the industrialization stage.

Research on the Heterogeneity of Green Biased Technology Progress in Chinese Industries: Decomposition Index Analysis Based on the Slacks-based measure integrating

<p><big>Green-biased technological progress takes into account the influence of energy input and pollution emissions, which is of great significance to China's green development. This paper decomposes technological progress into two categories: green input-biased technological progress (IBTC) and green output-biased technological progress (OBTC), using the Slacks-based measure integrating (SBM) model. The factor bias in technological progress is determined based on data from 34 industries in China from 2000 to 2015. The results show that green-biased technological progress exists significantly in the industry, and most of it promotes the growth of green total factor productivity. IBTC first tends to consume energy to pursue capital between capital input and energy input, while it tends to save energy after the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. Between labor input and energy input, it is biased towards saving labor and consuming resources. OBTC is biased towards promoting industrial growth and curbing pollution emissions. Medium and light-polluting industries are biased toward promoting industrial growth and curbing pollution emissions, while heavy-polluting industries are biased towards emitting more pollution.</big></p>

Environmental regulations, R&D intensity, and enterprise profit rate: Understanding firm performance in heavy pollution industries

With the worldwide green revolution, especially “pollution prevention and control” as one major strategy, environmental issues have received more and more attention. Environmental regulations, as an institutional norm, directly or indirectly regulate corporate behavior. Therefore, it is significant to examine the relationship between corporate performance and environmental regulations. In this paper, we conduct an empirical study on the relationships among environmental regulations, R&D intensity, and enterprise profit rate. Our data are from the 395 A-share companies in heavy pollution industries listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges in China from 2008 to 2017. Our methodologies include Ordinary Least Squares mixed regression, quantile regression, and Generalized Method of Moments estimation. Our main research findings include the following. First, environmental regulation and R&D intensity both have a positive impact on corporate profit rate at the 1% significance level. Second, there are “threshold” effects on the promotion of corporate profit rate by environmental regulations and R&D intensity. Third, the product of environmental regulation and R&D intensity has a positive impact on corporate profit margin at the 1% significance level. Fourth, the impacts of environmental regulations and R&D intensity on corporate profit rate vary at different quantiles. Finally, R&D intensity is a partial mediation variable in the relationship between environmental regulations and enterprise profit rate. In terms of policy insights, our results suggest that the government formulate appropriate environmental regulations and enhance the support for enterprise R&D to stimulate technological innovation in the heavy pollution industries.

Can China's carbon trading policy improve the profitability of polluting firms: a retest of Porter's hypothesis.

The future trends and development trajectory of China's carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS), one of the key policy instruments for curbing peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality, have drawn a lot of interest. However, the Porter hypothesis (PH) and its validity boundary have not been explored sufficiently. We use micro-firm data from 2010 to 2019 to investigate whether the triple-difference (DDD) method could reveal the weak PH on the policy viewing ETS as a quasi-natural experiment in this work. Meanwhile, we use the panel threshold model and the moderated mediation effect model to assess the scientific border of the PH on the ETS. The findings show that by verifying the weak PH, the ETS may greatly enhance investment and foster the inventiveness of heavy-polluting industries (HPE). In contrast, the strong PH on the ETS has unstable validity and has non-linear characteristics. In particular, the ETS shows a U-shaped link between innovation and profitability by first decreasing and then increasing HPE's profitability through R&D. The cost of R&D and compliance costs being combined negatively impacts HPE's profitability. Further analysis shows that ETS will have different effects on the profitability of HPE due to R&D level and the threshold change of the compliance cost. This paper will offer some insightful points of view for the implementation of carbon market mechanisms in developing nations like China.

Bank-Firm Relationship and Corporate Green Innovation: Evidence from China

This paper analyzes the correlation between bank-firm relationship and corporate green innovation in heavy pollution industries in China. It is found that bank-firm relationship has positively effect on corporate green innovation. The result is robust to Heckman two-stage analysis and Placebo test. Mechanism analysis shows that bank-firm relationship can reduce information asymmetry between borrower and lender, and foster corporate to obtain more debt financing and advance environmental governance. Moreover, the effect of bank-firm relationship on green innovation is more pronounced for corporate located in the area with poor green finance and low environmental regulatory information. Our findings suggest that bank-firm relationship can promote corporate green innovation and contribute to the development of green finance.

Can government environmental regulation promote low-carbon development in heavy polluting industries? Evidence from China's new environmental protection law

In order to better combat environmental pollution, China promulgated the New China Environmental Protection Law (CNEPL) in 2015. Previous studies have focused more on the impact of CNEPL on the enterprise performance and green innovation, ignoring the relationship between CNEPL and industrial low-carbon development. This paper uses the implementation of CNEPL as a quasi-natural experiment and constructs a DID model to analyze whether and how government environmental regulation affect the carbon emissions intensity of heavy polluting industries. The results show that CNEPL implementation significantly reduces industrial carbon emissions intensity. Specifically, after the implementation of the CNEPL, the carbon emissions intensity of the heavy polluting industries decreased by 3.4% annually compared to non-heavily polluting industries. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the CNEPL has greater effects in industries with higher market competition degrees and larger average enterprises sizes. We further study influence mechanisms and find that re-allocation of resources, energy structure optimization, green technology innovation and energy efficiency improvement are significant influence mechanisms. Our findings provide policy insights for using government environmental regulation tools to achieve industrial carbon reduction target.

How does carbon emissions trading scheme affect steel enterprises' pollution control performance? A quasi natural experiment from China

Taking advantage of a 2005–2018 sample of 86 Chinese steel enterprises (CSEs) and the difference-in-differences method, this paper utilizes the carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) — as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the impact of the carbon ETS on the total factor pollution control efficiency (TFPCE) of CSEs to test the green development effect of the carbon ETS. Then, the green development effect of the carbon ETS is empirically tested by a variety of robustness tests, such as DDD and PSM-DID. The results show that the carbon ETS policy significantly improves the TFPCE of CSEs located in the pilot area, generating the green development effect, and that this the annual effect lags by one year. Additionally, the channel analysis from the perspective of enterprise internal management and the external environment shows that strategic innovation, substantive innovation and institutional quality play a positive role in enhancing pollution control performance respectively. The heterogeneity test shows that the green development effect is better for state-owned CSEs and CSEs located in the eastern and central China. The conclusion has significant implications for green and low-carbon development in heavy pollution industries and has implications for further promoting the implementation of market-oriented environmental regulations.

Relationship between the Size of Accounting Firm and the Quality of Carbon Accounting Information Disclosure——The Case of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies in heavy pollution industry in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

The quality of carbon accounting disclosure has attracted much attention as carbon neutrality and carbon peaking targets were mentioned in the general debate of the United Nations General Assembly in 2020. As the world's largest country of Carbon Emission, China lacks research related to the size of accounting firms and the quality of carbon accounting disclosure. This paper establishes an evaluation system of carbon accounting information disclosure quality from the perspective of accounting information quality characteristics, selects Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei regions in 2021 as the research sample, and compares carbon accounting information disclosure quality of listed companies audited by accounting firms of varying sizes from each characteristic dimension of accounting information quality characteristics, and lastly a comprehensive comparison and one-way ANOVA were conducted to explore the relationship between the size of accounting firms and the quality of carbon accounting information disclosure of listed companies in the heavy pollution industry as a whole. The research results indicate that the reliability, timeliness, understandability, and integrity of carbon accounting information of listed companies audited by larger accounting firms are better, but comparability and relevance are not significantly related to accounting firm size; overall, the larger accounting firms correspond to higher quality of carbon accounting information disclosure of listed companies in heavy pollution industries. Based on the research results, this paper puts forward relevant suggestions at three levels: accounting firms, the state, and enterprises, to improve the quality of carbon accounting information disclosure of listed companies, and then to promote the carbon emission reduction work of enterprises, thereby facilitating the achievement of "dual carbon" objectives.

What Remains Unsolved in Sub-African Environmental Exposure Information Disclosure: A Review

Background: Africa comprises the bulk of struggling economies. However, Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization. Excessive resource use, pollution, and the absence of relevant environmental disclosure are factors that contribute to these human-made damages. Environmental pollution as a threat to sustainable development results from these damages. Although it has been established that Sub-Saharan Africa would benefit from resource-management development, sustainable environmental strategies, and a reduction in urbanization and persistent poverty, the information on these issues has not been made public. Objective: To provide a full account of the level of environmental-exposure disclosure in Sub-Saharan African countries, including the current level of progress, gaps, and prospects, we reviewed the literature on environmental exposure information research in African populations. Methodology: We searched PubMed and Google Scholar for peer-reviewed research articles, reviews, or books examining environmental exposure and information disclosure in human populations in Africa. Results: In total, 89 full-text articles were eligible for the inclusion criteria. A quality assessment of the retrieved articles using the PRISMA guidelines resulted in the exclusion of 40 articles; therefore, 49 studies were included in the final analysis. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the environmental exposure information on household injuries, the use of chemicals such as pesticides in farming, industry-linked vectors and diseases, laboratory chemical exposure, industrial exposure, and epigenetic factors are not well-disclosed to the population. Conclusion: Environmental information disclosure standards should be incorporated into central-government policy recommendations. Standards should identify polluting industries, and companies should refrain from the voluntary disclosure of environmental information to manage their reputation. Heavy-pollution industries should be made sufficiently transparent to lessen the company–media collusion on information disclosure.

Does Environmental Credit Rating Promote Green Innovation in Enterprises? Evidence from Heavy Polluting Listed Companies in China.

Environmental credit rating (ECR) is a novel environmental governance tool proposed by China, but its implementation effect is still unknown. This study analyzed whether it achieves the goal of encouraging green innovation in enterprises. Based on the green patent data of listed companies in heavy polluting industries in China from 2010 to 2018, we constructed a heterogeneous timing difference-in-differences model to empirically study the impact of the ECR policy on green innovation. We find that the policy has significantly promoted heavy polluting enterprises’ green innovation. Moreover, the results passed a series of robustness tests. Importantly, we find that the policy has a positive effect on enterprises’ green innovation through the reputation mechanism and financing mechanism. Furthermore, the incentive effect of the policy varies with enterprise characteristics and regional characteristics: the green innovation effect of the policy is more obvious in large-sized and state-owned companies and companies in regions with low fiscal pressure and a high level of financial development are more likely to induce firms’ green innovation. Our research will be of practical value to China’s environmental management, as well as global value to other countries.

Efficiency evaluation of green innovation of China's heavy pollution industries based on SBM-Lasso-Tobit model.

Green innovation has become the goal for promoting the transformation and upgrading heavy pollution industries in the context of high-quality development, and the key factor for the success of green innovation is increasing the green innovation efficiency of heavy pollution industries. To understand the current situation of China’s industrial innovation and get out of the dilemma, we use non-expected Slacks-based model (SBM) to measure green innovation efficiency in Chinese industry, Lasso regression to screen the influencing factors of heavy pollution industries, tobit regression to study the influence degree and direction of different influencing factors on green innovation efficiency of heavy pollution industry. The results show that: (1) The green innovation efficiency of the 16 heavily polluting industries studied in this paper is generally low; (2) Coordination, green and openness all have a positive impact on the green innovation efficiency of the industry. (3) A certain degree of government scientific research support is conducive to improving the efficiency of industrial green innovation and exceeding the limit will have a restraining effect on enterprise innovation. According to the results, we put forward the corresponding policy implications.

Study on the Influence Mechanism of Environmental Management System Certification on Enterprise Green Innovation.

Improving the green technology innovation capability of enterprises is an important way for industrial enterprises to improve product quality and production efficiency and reduce industrial pollution and energy consumption. Based on the Porter hypothesis, this paper took the data of listed companies of the heavy polluting industry in Chinese A-shares from 2011–2018 as a study sample, and a difference-in-differences (DID) model was constructed to explore the impact of environmental management system certification (EMSC) on enterprises’ green innovation. This paper also studied the differential impact between the EMSC and enterprises’ green innovation from the perspective of enterprise heterogeneity. It was found that the EMSC has a significant promotion effect on the enterprises’ green innovation; this promotion changes with the size and ownership of the enterprise and the lifecycle of the enterprise. Meanwhile, customer, shareholder, and creditor satisfaction all play a positive moderating role in the process of EMSC affecting green innovation, while the moderating role of supplier satisfaction is not significant. The findings of this paper have important implications for the understanding of the role of EMSC in promoting green innovation in enterprises.

Can vertical environmental regulation induce enterprise green innovation? A new perspective from automatic air quality monitoring station in China.

Based on panel data of listed companies in China from 2006 to 2020, this study takes the establishment of automatic air quality monitoring stations as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the staggered difference-in-differences method to explore whether the establishment of monitoring stations promotes green innovation of listed companies. The empirical results show that: (1) The green innovation of companies achieves an increase of 3.5% with monitoring stations in their locations, and an increase of 2.3% with the establishment of each additional monitoring station. This conclusion is valid after a series of robustness tests and exclusive tests. (2) The heterogeneity analyses show that monitoring stations have a greater role in promoting green innovation for non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises in heavy polluting industries and enterprises in key cities for environmental protection. (3) The transmission mechanism test results show that the establishment of automatic air monitoring station has crowding-out effect rather than leverage effect on green innovation, substantial innovation rather than strategic innovation. (4) The further analyses manifest the promotion of end-to-end green innovation, independent invention and quality of green patents.

Whether Green Finance Improves Green Innovation of Listed Companies-Evidence from China.

Facing the intensification of global carbon emissions and the increasingly severe pressure of environmental pollution, listed companies urgently need to promote green innovation, achieve green transformation, and alleviate environmental problems. Green finance policy has played a significant role as a financial strategy for environmental governance in affecting green innovation level over the years. In this context, taking the green finance reform and innovation pilot zone (GFRIPZ) implemented in 2017 in China as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper analyzes the impact of green finance policy on green innovation level of listed companies by the difference-in-difference model. Based on the data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2020, the results of empirical analysis show that green finance significantly promotes green innovation of listed companies. The effect is profound on green utility model patents, but less pronounced on green invention patents. Among all these pilot zones, the policy effects of GFRIPZ ranked in descending order are Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guizhou, and Xinjiang. In addition, green finance has a more significant impact on heavy-polluting industries, large and state-owned enterprises, and listed companies located in the eastern region. Furthermore, the effects of industry heterogeneity ranked in descending order are energy, manufacturing, processing, and engineering industry, while it is not obvious in the service industry. Mechanism analysis suggests that the effect is driven by a reduction in the cost of debt financing and an increase in the long-term debt ratio. The findings provide implications for policymakers to promote the level of green innovation and environmental governance. Therefore, policymakers should support the long-term creative development of green invention patents by reducing the cost of debt financing and increasing the long-term debt ratio and consider the heterogeneous characteristics of listed companies when formulating green finance policies.

The Effect and Mechanism of Regional Environmental Regulation on Corporate Green Investment Efficiency - An empirical study based on heavily polluting listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares

Based on the input-output data of Chinese A-share listed companies in the heavy pollution industry in 2018-2019, SBM-DEA model was used to measure the corporate green investment efficiency, and Tobit model was used to examine the influence mechanism of regional environmental regulation on the corporate green investment efficiency using a hierarchical multiple regression method, and finally the group regression was used to further explore according to the nature of property rights. The results show that: (1) regional environmental regulation enforcement has an inverted "U" shape effect on corporate green investment efficiency. The moderating effect shows that the inverted U-shaped relationship between regional environmental regulations and green investment efficiency is positively moderated by public concern, i.e., the inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulations and green investment efficiency is significantly strengthened when enterprises face stronger public concern about environmental pollution. The inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and green investment efficiency is significantly strengthened when firms face strong public concern about environmental pollution. In contrast, the moderating effect of technological innovation on this inverted U-shaped relationship is not significant. (2) The paper further finds that the inverted "U" shaped relationship between regional environmental regulations and green investment efficiency is particularly significant in non-state enterprises, and the moderating effect of public concern is also more significant in non-state enterprises. Finally, the paper puts forward relevant policy recommendations.

Environmental Regulation and Green Innovation of Enterprises

Based on the sample data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies in the heavy pollution industry from 2012 to 2021, this paper empirically examines the impact of environmental regulation on the level of green innovation of enterprises by using the frequency of environmental protection words in the work reports of prefecture-level city governments as the proxy variable of environmental regulation. This study finds that government regulation significantly improves the level of green innovation of enterprises, supporting the “Porter Hypothesis”, and the promotion effect is more significant for non-state enterprises. This study plays an important role in improving the policy effect of environmental regulation, and puts forward some policy suggestions on how to reduce environmental pollution while promoting economic growth.

Research on environmental accounting information disclosure of listed companies in textile industry

The textile industry is one of the heavy polluting industries in China. It is also one of the industries that the state clearly requires to disclose environmental information on a regular basis. Firstly, this paper analyzes the annual report and social responsibility report of listed companies in Shenzhen and Shanghai main-board textile industry. Then it points out that the disclosure of listed companies in China's textile industry is still existing in the optional way of disclosure, disclosure content is not standard and other problems. Finally, suggestions on rational use of environmental regulation tools and strengthening the construction of environmental audit system are put forward.

The Implementation Measures of Environmental Accounting in Heavy Pollution Industry in the Context of Sustainable Development

Since the 21st century, China’s science and technology and economy have been developing rapidly, but many enterprises are pursuing their economic interests at the expense of the environment. Therefore, research on the implementation of environmental accounting is not only of academic value but also of a practical significance to the implementation of the scientific concept of development and ecological environment. In this paper, we used literature analysis, case study, and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation to analyze the implementation of environmental accounting of “A” joint-stock company as an example and concluded that the problems of environmental information implementation in China are caused by imperfection of national macropolicies and laws and regulations, lack of concrete measures, and low management level, and lack of management concept of enterprises. Therefore, under China’s current policy, further improving the implementation of the internal environmental accounting of enterprises is of constructive significance to promoting ecological civilization and sustainable development.

Exploring the Role of Environmental Regulation and Technological Innovation in Financial Performance: Evidence from Chinese Heavy-Polluting Industry

Environmental regulation is an important guarantee to realize the balanced development of economy and environment, and is the policy guidance of the government to the resource utilization of companies. Environmental regulation will make companies increase costs, and also promote companies to explore technological innovation. How to reverse the negative cost effect of environmental regulation and improve financial performance is a problem that the government and companies need to think about together. Based on the data from 2015 to 2019 of China’s heavy-polluting industry of listed companies, this paper analyzes the impact of environmental regulation on financial performance. The results show that: (1) environmental regulation inhibits firms’ short-term and long-term financial performance. Environmental regulation has formed the negative effect of cost crowding out; (2) environmental regulation positively affects technological innovation. Environmental regulation can stimulate companies to actively explore technological reform to cope with the requirements and restrictions of environmental regulation policies; (3) technological innovation is not significantly negatively correlated with corporate financial performance. Technological innovation input cannot directly lead to the improvement of financial performance in the current period; and (4) technological innovation positively mediates the relationship between environmental regulation and financial performance. That verifies a weak “Porter Hypothesis”. “Innovation compensation effect” exists, and technological innovation can partially offset “cost crowding out effect” and slow down the inhibition relationship of environmental regulation on financial performance, but the innovation effect does not offset the environmental cost. According to the research results, environmental regulation still has a negative effect on the financial performance of listed companies in China’s heavy-polluting industries. The government should formulate strict and stringent environmental regulation policies, guide companies to rationally use resources and protect the environment. Instead of passively responding to policies, companies should actively seek new technologies and alternative sources of energy. Companies try to amplify the compensation effect of technological innovation, reduce the cost crowding out effect of environmental regulation, and improve their value.