Green bonds have emerged as a novel funding mechanism specifically aimed at addressing environmental challenges. Focusing on A-share listed companies in China that went public with bond issues domestically from 2012 to 2021, we reveal that companies with higher energy usage and better environmental disclosure quality are the most inclined to issue green bonds. Such issuance is identified as a pathway towards real green transformation, markedly boosting the green transformation index, green innovation efficiency, and ESG performance. Further analysis indicates that the effect of substantial transformation is particularly pronounced among companies in the eastern regions of China.

The growing emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles, particularly in corporate sectors, shapes investment trends and operational strategies, whose shift is supported by the increasing role of media in monitoring and influencing corporate ESG performance, thereby driving the energy innovation. Therefore, based on reported events from Baidu News and patent text information of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2022, this study innovatively applied machine learning and text analysis to measure ESG news sentiment and corporate energy innovation indicators. Combing with reputation, stakeholder, and agency theories, we find that a good reputation conveyed by positive ESG textual sentiments in the media significantly promotes corporate energy innovation, and the effect is mainly realized through alleviating financing constraints and agency problems and promoting green investment. Further analysis shows that ESG news sentiment promotes corporate energy innovation mainly among private firms, non-growth-stage firms, high-energy-consuming firms, and regions with better green finance development and higher ESG governance intensity. From the perspective of ESG news content and information content, greater ESG news attention can also exert an energy innovation incentive effect, in which the incentive effect exerted by positive media sentiment in the environmental (E) and social (S) dimensions, as well as excellent attention, is more robust. This study provides new insights for promoting green and low-carbon development and understanding the external governance role of media in corporate ESG development.

It has been widely recognized that firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performances are crucial for shaping their information environments. Nonetheless, the impact of ESG performances on important analyst report attributes still remains clear. Our study reveals that superior firm. ESG performances significantly enhance the analyst report readability. The mechanism analysis demonstrates that this effect is primarily driven by increased information accessibility (the information acquisition channel) and greater analysts’ research efforts (the analyst effort channel). As expected, this effect is more pronounced in firms operating in highly polluted industries, firms with opaque financial infomration and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Finally, our findings reveal that the release of analyst reports triggers higher market reactions for firms with superior ESG performances. In overall, our study highlights the criticial role of firm ESG performances in boosting financial analysts’ information production process.

Utilizing data from Chinese A-share listed companies, this study investigates the effects of digital transformation (DT) on total factor productivity (TFP) and the moderating function of ESG performance. The results indicate that DT boosts TFP, but ESG performance negatively moderates this effect, revealing the green paradox. A dynamic model of factor allocation efficiency shows that DT improves capital allocation by reducing financing constraints, information asymmetry, and enhancing operational capacity. However, ESG weakens the positive link between DT and operational capacity, thus diminishing its impact on TFP. Similarly, DT increases labor productivity, but ESG undermines this effect by weakening the link between DT and labor efficiency. The positive impact of DT is stronger when firms focus on ‘Practical Application Technologies’ rather than ‘Underlying Technologies’. This effect is especially evident in smaller, asset-intensive, non-state-owned firms, and those located in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Additionally, ESG’s negative moderation is more pronounced where DT exerts a stronger positive influence. A notable distinction emerges: asset-intensive firms gain more from DT in terms of TFP, whereas ESG’s adverse effect is stronger in labour-intensive firms. This study offers a novel perspective on the interplay between DT, ESG performance, and productivity. It provides valuable insights for firms seeking to align digital strategies with ESG goals, thereby fostering technological innovation alongside sustainable development.

ESG is emerging as a new benchmark for measuring a company's sustainable development capabilities and social impact. As a measure of ESG performance, ESG ratings are increasingly receiving attention from companies, the general public, and government institutions, and are becoming an important reference factor influencing their decision-making. This paper investigates the impact of corporate ESG ratings on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and its mechanisms of action. Focusing on listed companies in China, we find that higher ESG ratings contribute to improving a company's TFP, and this conclusion remains valid after robustness tests and addressing endogeneity issues. Further exploration into the reasons behind this result reveals that ESG ratings can be seen as a signal that a company sends to the outside world, representing its overall performance. Higher ESG ratings enhance a company's TFP by reducing market financing constraints and obtaining government subsidies. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive impact of ESG ratings on TFP is more pronounced for companies with higher levels of attention, reputation, and audit quality. Additionally, we explore whether ESG ratings can serve as a predictive indicator for measuring a company's TFP. This hypothesis was tested using machine learning algorithms, and the results indicate that models incorporating ESG rating indicators significantly improve the accuracy of predicting a company's TFP capabilities.

There is substantial evidence indicating that enterprises are negatively impacted by climate risk, with the most direct effects typically occurring in financial domains. This study examines A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2023, employing text analysis to develop the firm-level climate risk indicator and investigate the influence on corporate financial risk. The results show a significant positive correlation between climate risk and financial risk at the firm level. Mechanism analysis shows that the negative impact of climate risk on corporate financial condition is mainly achieved through three paths: increasing financial constraints, reducing inventory reserves, and increasing the degree of maturity mismatch. To address potential endogeneity, this study applies instrumental variable tests, propensity score matching, and a quasi-natural experiment based on the Paris Agreement. Additional tests indicate that reducing the degree of information asymmetry and improving corporate ESG performance can alleviate the negative impact of climate risk on corporate financial conditions. This relationship is more pronounced in high-carbon emission industries. In conclusion, this research deepens the understanding of the link between climate risk and corporate financial risk, providing a new micro perspective for risk management, proactive governance transformation, and the mitigation of financial challenges faced by enterprises.

We evaluate the impact of digital finance on the ESG performance of manufacturing enterprises and whether digital and traditional finance play a complementary or substitute role in promoting the ESG performance. First, we find that developing digital finance can alleviate financing constraints and promote technological innovation, thereby increasing enterprises' investment in environmental, social, and governance, providing sufficient technical support, and improving their ESG performance. Furthermore, digital finance and traditional finance have a direct impact on the ESG performance and further enhance their influence through complementary effects. Therefore, this paper may provide a valuable reference for finance to support manufacturing enterprises' development effectively.

The study indicates that under conditions of financial repression, a enterprise’s ESG performance significantly impacts the extent of its short-term debt used for long-term purposes. The mechanism test reveals that ESG performance mitigates the degree of short-term debt for long-term use through three pathways: enhancing information transparency, alleviating financing constraints, and curbing excessive investment. Further research suggests that the influence of ESG performance on the use of short-term debt for long-term purposes is more pronounced among private enterprises, high-pollution and high-energy-consuming enterprises, and enterprises in underdeveloped regions. This paper enriches the research on the relationship between ESG performance and corporate financing decisions.

This paper investigates whether Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance influences the stock idiosyncratic risk and extreme risk. We find that the ESG performance of listed companies significantly reduces the stock idiosyncratic risk and extreme risk. Furthermore, we identify that this mitigating effect is shaped by the nature of enterprise ownership and the firm life cycle. Through additional mechanistic analysis, we confirm that ESG performance affects the stock price volatility risk of listed companies by reducing levels of corporate earnings management and bolstering corporate reputation, thereby alleviating both idiosyncratic risk and extreme risk in stock prices.

This paper investigates the effect of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the ESG performance of their underlying firms. Using data from China, we find that ETFs enhance the ESG performance of their underlying firms. This finding remains consistent after several robustness and endogeneity tests. Further, we show that the effect is more pronounced for non-SOEs, firms in low-polluting industries, and firms at growth and maturity stages. Studying the mechanisms behind these results, we find that ETFs mitigate the corporate agency problems, enhance the willingness of managers to invest in ESG, and improve the ESG performance.