非正式环境规制的力量：ESG软监管能否促进企业 激进式绿色技术创新？

The Power of Informal Environmental Regulation: Can ESG Soft Regulation Promote Radical Green Technology Innovation in Companies?

摘要:

在发展新质生产力背景下，企业作为自主创新和推动绿色技术进步的重要载体，其行为对生态环境管理起决定性作用，立足外部利益相关者、内部战略决策者特质等探究企业绿色技术创新的驱动因素已成为学界与业界关注的重要议题。文章从非正式环境规制视角出发，借助2011—2020年重污染行业上市公司面板数据，探究了ESG评级对企业激进式绿色技术创新的影响及内在作用机制。研究发现：更高的ESG评级能够有效促进企业激进式绿色技术创新。机制识别发现，ESG评级可以通过提高企业的风险承担水平来促进激进绿色技术创新，且高管环保意识强化了ESG评级与企业激进式绿色技术创新之间的促进关系。进一步地，不同情境下ESG评级对企业激进式绿色技术创新的影响存在异质性，且作为非正式环境规制的ESG评级与正式环境规制在促进企业激进式绿色技术创新方面互为补充。

Abstract:

Under the background of developing new quality productivity, the behavior of enterprises, as an important carrier of independent innovation and promotion of green technological progress, plays a decisive role in ecological environment management, and it has become an important issue of concern for academics and the industry to explore the driving factors of enterprises' green technological innovation based on the external stakeholders and internal strategic decision-makers' qualities. From the perspective of informal environmental regulation, the article explores the impact of ESG ratings on firms' radical green technology innovation and the underlying mechanisms with the help of panel data of listed companies in the heavy pollution industry from 2011 to 2020. It is found that higher ESG ratings can effectively promote firms' radical green technology innovation. Mechanism identification reveals that ESG ratings can promote radical green technological innovation by increasing the level of corporate risk-taking, and that the environmental awareness of executives strengthens the promotional relationship between ESG ratings and corporate radical green technological innovation; furthermore, there is heterogeneity in the impact of ESG ratings on corporate radical green technological innovation in different contexts, and ESG ratings as an informal environmental regulation are different from those as a formal environmental regulation in the promotion of corporate radical green technological innovation. ESG ratings as informal environmental regulation and formal environmental regulation complement each other in promoting firms' radical green technological innovation.