Responding to green finance with emission reduction and value-added: The role of enterprise environmental investment

Responding to China’s green finance policy with enterprise environmental investment (EEI) constitutes a crucial link in achieving environmental governance objectives, exerting crucial influence on the nation’s green transformation and high-quality development. Taking the pilot policy of China’s Green Finance Reform and Innovation Experimental Zone (GFRP) in 2017 as a quasi-natural experiment, this study systematically evaluates the effect of GFRP policy on the decisions of EEI and further explore whether the investments are used for passive end-of-pipe treatment (EOP) or positive source prevention (SP) by using firm-level data. The results indicate that GFRP policy can significantly promote EEI, and mainly reflected in SP, rather than EOP. Through potential mechanism analysis, it can be concluded that GFRP policy facilitates EEI by alleviating financial constraint, reducing agency cost, and enhancing environmental information disclosure. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that there exists asymmetry in policy effects, with greater impacts in high green finance development areas, low concentration industries and large-scale enterprises. Furthermore, micro-level performance consequences examination reveals that the enterprises’ decision to increase EEI under GFRP policy not only effectively realizes energy conservation and emission reduction but also contribute to facilitating enterprise value, to achieve green transformation. This study holds significant policy implications, providing empirical evidence to policymakers for the refinement and dissemination of green finance policy, and offering valuable insights for enterprise investment and management decisions.