ESG Rating Divergence and Exploratory Green Innovation for heavy-polluting Firms

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-702-1_24How to use a DOI?

Keywords

ESG rating divergence; heavy-polluting firms; exploratory green innovation

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between ESG rating divergence and firms’ green innovation using a sample of Chinese firms in the heavy-polluting firms from 2009 to 2022. It is found that ESG rating divergence significantly inhibits the level of exploratory green innovation of heavy-polluting firms. Mechanism analysis finds that increasing the cost of corporate debt financing and decreasing corporate risk-taking are two ways ESG rating divergence inhibits firms’ exploratory green innovation. Heterogeneity analysis finds that the inhibitory effect of ESG rating divergence on firms’ exploratory green innovation is more pronounced among firms with high public concern, while there is no significant difference among firms with different levels of internal control.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xiaonan Guo
AU  - Jiaxuan Ou
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/05
TI  - ESG Rating Divergence and Exploratory Green Innovation for heavy-polluting Firms
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 10th International Conference on Financial Innovation and Economic Development (ICFIED 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 223
EP  - 231
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-702-1_24
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-702-1_24
ID  - Guo2025
ER  -