Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1483237
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Risk and Green and Low-Carbon Transformation: Economic Impact and Policy Response View all articles

ESG performance and corporate carbon emission intensity: Based on panel data analysis of A-share listed companies

Provisionally accepted
XIE Hanjin XIE Hanjin 1Zilong Qin Zilong Qin 2*Jun Li Jun Li 3
  • 1 East China Jiaotong University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
  • 2 Guilin University of Technology, Guilin, China
  • 3 Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study investigates the impact of ESG performance on enterprise carbon emission intensity, using panel data from A-share listed companies over 2011-2022. The findings suggest that ESG can encourage enterprises to actively engage in environmental governance, enhancing their profitability and reducing carbon emission intensity, thereby achieving dual optimization of environmental and economic benefits. The mechanism test reveals the intermediary roles of institutional investors' participation, total factor productivity, and green technology innovation. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the relationship between ESG performance and enterprise carbon emission intensity varies with different degrees of management shortsightedness, ownership separation, equity balance, legitimacy status, and industrial pollution characteristics, reflecting the heterogeneous influence driven by Intrinsic motivation and external factors. Notably, the mitigating influence of ESG on enterprise carbon emission intensity is mainly attributed to enhanced corporate profitability, which effectively decelerates the growth rate of enterprise carbon emissions, albeit insufficient to arrest the overall increase. This observation points to a certain degree of "green paradox" phenomenon. Overall, the analysis underscores the significant contribution of ESG in promoting enterprises' green transformation efforts.

    Keywords: ESG, Carbon emission intensity, intrinsic motivation, external factors, Green paradox

    Received: 19 Aug 2024; Accepted: 04 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Hanjin, Qin and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Zilong Qin, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.