What Drives Sustainable Development of Enterprises? Focusing on ESG Management and Green Technology Innovation

Abstract

Sustainable development of a company is an important task in corporate management. Enterprises must constantly innovate and change to achieve sustainable development. In China, considering the need for sustainable development of enterprises and the requirement of the dual carbon goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, the environment, social responsibility, and governance (ESG) management and green technology innovation of enterprises are in the spotlight. Therefore, this study aimed to use empirical analysis to verify whether the ESG performance of enterprises promotes corporate green technology innovation and to further explore corporate attributes that promote the relationship between the two. This study selected 933 Chinese A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2019 as the research object and used the fixed effect model to empirically analyze the relationship between ESG performance and the green technology innovation capability of enterprises. The results show that ESG performance plays an important role in promoting green technology innovation capability. Moreover, this study found that, compared to enterprises with low technology levels or short-listing life span, the ESG performance of enterprises with high technology level and long listing life span has a stronger role in promoting the green technology innovation capability of enterprises. Simultaneously, compared with non-state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises play a stronger role in the promotion. This study enriches the theoretical mechanism of ESG performance affecting green technology innovation of enterprises, and they have a certain reference value for promoting the sustainable development of enterprises.