Influence Of ESG Performance On Loan Credit Financing Of Energy Enterprises

The energy industry is the basic industry of the national economy,which plays an important role in ensuring the healthy development of the economy and the improvement of people’s lives.At the same time,energy production and consumption are main sources in the environmental pollution.Especially under the background of the goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality",achieving green and low-carbon transformation has become the main theme of the development of the energy industry.The development of the energy industry cannot be achieved without the strong support of financial loan credit.In the process of using loan credit to promote the transformation of the energy industry,financial institutions are also increasingly focusing on the performance of energy enterprises in environmental protection and social responsibility.In particular,since the early 20th century,foreign countries have started to promote the concept of environmental protection responsibility and social responsibility,forming a mature Environment,Social responsibility and corporate Governance(ESG)rating system.Financial institutions comprehensively evaluate the loan credit performance and risk through enterprise ESG information,providing support for financial institutions in the investment decision-making.In this context,it is of great significance to investigate the impact of ESG performance of energy enterprises on their loan credit access.Based on the panel data of listed energy enterprises in China from 2011 to 2020,this paper analyzes the impact of ESG performance of energy enterprises on the loan credit financing,and the heterogeneity effect of different enterprise types and further investigates the relationship between enterprise profitability and ESG performance of energy enterprises in the loan credit financing.The main conclusions are as follows:first,ESG performance of energy enterprises has a significant promotion effect on their access to loan credit financing.However,ESG performance only has a significant positive impact on short-term credit,and has no significant impact on medium and long-term loans.Second,the heterogeneity analysis found that ESG performance had a significant positive impact on the short-term credit of renewable energy enterprises,but it was not significant in traditional fossil energy enterprises.From the three components of ESG performance,environmental performance and corporate governance performance have a significant positive effect on short-term credit of energy enterprises,while social responsibility performance has no significant effect.Third,corporate profitability plays a positive regulatory role in the relationship between ESG performance of energy enterprises and credit financing.That is,the better profitability of the enterprise,the more prominent effect of ESG performance of energy enterprises in acquiring the loan credit financing.Based on the above research conclusions,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations:during the loan credit granting process,the banking department should make full use of the ESG performance of energy enterprises to conduct a comprehensive evaluation,and accordingly increase medium-and long-term financial support for energy enterprises.For energy enterprises,especially fossil energy enterprises,it is necessary to constantly strengthen ESG performance to help green transformation.Government departments should establish a standardized ESG system and an authoritative information disclosure system for energy enterprises to strengthen ESG performance,and for financial institutions to identify ESG performance.