Research On The Impact Of Environmental Protection Investment On Enterprise Performance

The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to actively yet prudently promote carbon neutrality,promote harmonious coexistence between man and nature through green development,and promote high-quality development.Enterprises are claimants of natural resources and creators of economic wealth,and business investment is the key to high-quality development.Under the current environmental pollution problem and the realization of the "double carbon" goal,exploring the impact of enterprise environmental protection investment on performance and the mechanism of green innovation can deepen enterprises’ understanding of the consequences of participating in environmental governance,mobilize enterprises’ enthusiasm for environmental protection investment,improve resource utilization efficiency,and enhance enterprises’ green competitiveness.Then realize the economic benefit,environmental benefit and social benefit "win-win".Based on the review of existing literature,this paper puts forward hypotheses based on Porter’s hypothesis,sustainable development,social responsibility and other theories,and constructs a moderated intermediary model.Enterprises that continuously disclose environmental investment data in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2011 to 2020 are selected as research samples to empirically study the impact of environmental investment on corporate performance and its path.The findings are as follows:(1)Environmental protection investment can promote enterprises to improve performance.Enterprise environmental protection investment will bring economic benefits as well as ecological benefits;(2)Green innovation plays an intermediary role in the process of environmental protection investment affecting enterprise performance.The implementation of environmental protection investment strategy can encourage managers to carry out green innovation,so as to win the trust of stakeholders,cultivate unique green competitive advantages,and enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises.(3)Marketization level strengthens the positive effect of green innovation on enterprise performance.Regions with a higher degree of marketization,high factor allocation efficiency and less government intervention on enterprises,can provide better services for enterprises to transform green innovation achievements,thus improving enterprise performance.Heterogeneity test shows that:(1)Compared with state-owned holding enterprises,environmental protection investment in non-state-owned holding enterprises has a more significant effect on corporate performance;(2)Compared with other industries,environmental protection investment in heavily polluting industries has a more significant positive impact on enterprise performance.Alternative variables and Sobel and Bootstrap methods were used to verify the robustness of the conclusions.According to the conclusion,it is proposed that:(1)enterprises should pay more attention to environmental protection,take the initiative to assume environmental responsibility,and internalize the concept of green sustainable development;(2)Enterprises should strengthen green innovation,establish green innovation concept,formulate green innovation strategy,and form unique competitive advantages;(3)The government should speed up the pace of industrial structure adjustment and optimization to promote high-quality economic development;(4)The government should further deepen market reform,improve the market competition mechanism,give play to the market-oriented role,build a more fair and standardized market order,and create a good market environment for green innovation.