Public Environmental Concerns,Internal Control And Corporate Environmental Investment

With the rapid economic development,the situation of environmental pollution in China is becoming more and more serious,and the public’s concern about environmental pollution is increasing day by day."Environmental protection is everyone’s responsibility" Environmental pollution control is far from enough by the government’s efforts.As a user of social resources and a manufacturer of environmental pollution,enterprises should take the heavy responsibility of environmental protection.However,the social benefits of environmental protection investment are far greater than their economic benefits.Coupled with the negative externalities of environmental pollution and the positive externalities of environmental protection,the enthusiasm of enterprises for environmental protection investment is further reduced.Frequent outbreaks of environmental pollution problems in recent years have made the public’s demands for the environment constantly awakened,and the public’s attention to environmental pollution issues has also become increasingly close.Effective environmental governance requires the joint efforts of the government,enterprises and the public.Only when the three forces go hand in hand can we build a "green China with beautiful green waters".In the report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,General Secretary Xi also pointed out the need to build an environmental governance system that is “government-led,enterprise-led,social organizations,and public participation”.The public’s attention to the environment has increased the pressure on corporate environmental governance,which inevitably has an impact on corporate environmental investment decisions.Based on this,this article takes China’s A-share heavily polluting enterprises from 2011 to 2018 as a research sample to study the impact of public environmental concerns on corporate environmental protection investment.First of all,this article sorts out the relevant literature of public environmental concern,internal control and corporate environmental investment and makes a clear definition of it.Secondly,based on public pressure theory,corporate reputation theory,legitimacy theory and externality theory,the logical relationship between public environmental concerns and corporate environmental investment was deduced.Then,based on previous studies,construct a related multiple regression model.Through empirical analysis,the following conclusions are reached:(1)Public environmental concerns helps to promote corporate environmental investment.(2)Internal control can strengthen the promotion of public environmental concerns on corporate environmental investment.(3)In areas with low levels of environmental regulation,the role of public environmental concerns in promoting corporate environmental investment and the role of internal control in regulating the relationship between the two are more significant.Finally,this article puts forward policy recommendations to actively guide public environmental concerns,optimize the construction of the network administration platform,strengthen the construction of corporate internal control systems,and actively assume environmental responsibilities.The innovations of this article are mainly reflected in:(1)Using the "Internet" technology,using the Baidu index to construct "public environmental concerns" indicators,and introducing public environmental concerns to the study of influencing factors of corporate environmental investment,enriching the perspective of corporate environmental investment research.(2)The use of corporate environmental investment to test the economic consequences of public environmental concerns has enriched the research on public participation in environmental governance.(3)Considering the influencing factors of corporate environmental investment from the perspective of the company’s internal governance and public external supervision,it has enriched the research of influencing factors of corporate environmental investment.