Summary:
China's economic and social development has entered the high-quality development stage of accelerating greening and low carbonization. To ensure sustainable economic growth and speed up the construction of an economic system that is green, low-carbon, and cyclic developing, enterprises must proactively adopt green and low-carbon mode of production, harmonize efforts to reduce pollution and carbon emissions, and comprehensively improve the greening level. Porter's hypothesis holds that rational environmental regulation policies can effectively promote enterprise green technology innovation, thereby improving production efficiency and competitiveness, and ultimately fostering economic growth. This study explores how government environmental impact assessment (EIA) influence green technology innovation through the “administration plus market” two-wheel drive perspective using A-share listed companies in China from 2003 to 2021 as the research sample. The EIA approval data were acquired through Python technology from CNInfo and the Public Environmental Data Center, which encompass project EIA approval announcements and environmental assessment reports released by listed companies. The data on enterprise green technology innovation were sourced from the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of China. We manually collected and collated company green patent citation data and green patent application data based on the “International Patent Classification Green List” provided by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).Given this, this study concentrates on investigating the impact and operational mechanism of government environmental impact assessment (EIA) on corporate green technology innovation. The research findings are as follows: (1) Government EIA can significantly promote the corporate green technology innovation. This is primarily evidenced by the increased environmental governance investment and the enhancement of green technology innovation during project construction or modifications, since companies need to meet the EIA approval requirements for green production and pollution control. (2) Mechanism test reveals that, in terms of administrative supervision, enterprise EIA reports can timely disclose the prevention measures and innovative means adopted in environmental aspects during the construction of enterprise projects. The government EIA provides a reference for environmental penalty through information transmission. Therefore, the government EIA has further strengthened the government's supervision of the enterprise's environmental governance through environmental penalties, forcing enterprises to carry out green technology innovation. In terms of market guiding, enterprises can obtain professional guidance on environmental governance from market EIA institutions, thereby improving their green investment levels. In terms of public concern, government EIA can significantly increase regional public participation, and then drive enterprises to enhance their green technology innovation. (3) Further studies shows that national government EIA can significantly improve the quality and novelty of green patents of enterprises, while the provincial and municipal government EIA can effectively reduce the green proximity of enterprises. At the same time, compared with other enterprises, the government EIA has a more obvious effect on promoting green technology innovation in heavily polluting enterprises and enterprises with no political connection.The paper's contributions can be summarized as follows: Firstly, government EIA, relying on the two wheels of “administration plus market”, offers preliminary evidence to the efficiency of environmental regulation. Based on the perspective of government EIA, this paper conducts in-depth research and draws new empirical evidence by integrating the innovative regulatory methods of administrative approvals and market guidance. Secondly, the government EIA can promote green technology innovation by providing administrative supervision institutions with a punishment basis, guiding enterprises to increase their incentives to invest in environmental governance, and reinforcing public supervising, which provides good insights into how governments can effectively guide micro-enterprises in their green transformation and promote green innovation of enterprises. Thirdly, from the perspective of “law and finance,” this paper further improves the legal protection mechanism of ecological environment protection. Government EIA effectively combines “government legal regulation” and “full market participation”, reflecting the institutional advantages of the organic synergy of market role and government efficiency: on the one hand, it continuously complements and improves the legal regulations for environmental governance of enterprise's construction projects, using the “visible hands” of the government to exert strong regulatory effects on enterprises and effectively encouraging green technology innovation. On the other hand, by leveraging market power, it offers professional guidance to the EIA report, aiding enterprises in clarifying the environmental impacts of construction projects and corresponding protection measures and technologies. This improves the efficiency of green innovation, stimulates the innovation power, and broadens the development paths for green economy among enterprises.The following is the summary of the policy implications of this paper: (1) Deepening the connection between government EIA and pollutant discharge permits. On the one hand, EIA, as a prevention measure of government environmental management, can coordinate multiple regulatory forces, synthesize on-the-spot investigation and program linkage and other methods, improve the transparency of corporate information on environmental governance, effectively grasp the possible environmental impacts of corporate project construction timely, and carry out a more comprehensive process supervision. On the other hand, the enterprise's pollutant discharge permit system focuses on the early-warning and management, which can strengthen the real-time monitoring of enterprise pollution discharge by EIA, refine the regulatory framework of pollutant discharge, and effectively play the external role of EIA supervision. The convergence of the two systems can further enhance the integration and exchange of various governance methods in China's ecological environment governance and improve the environment-related legal system. (2) It's essential to strengthen the degree of public participation in government EIA and ensure the openness and transparency of EIA information throughout the whole process. There still remains the problem of information asymmetry in China's government EIA process. Some approval processes are still not open and transparent. Therefore, it is necessary to further enhance the disclosure of enterprise pollution emission information in the government EIA process, encourage the public to actively participate in the protection and management of ecological environment, and guide all social strata in various regions to join hands, contribute ideas, and jointly commit to the green and long-term sustainable development of China's economy. (3) The clarification of the role of green technology innovation and coordination of the environmental governance responsibilities among multiple stakeholders are of great importance. High cost, long cycle, and difficulty of transformation of green innovation technologies have always been persistent challenges in the R & D process. China should cross-utilize multi-disciplinary knowledge, gather multiple EIA participants, learn from environmental science and informatics theory, apply computer science technology and thus deeply analyze the logical principles of green innovation technologies.
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