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Corporate environmental governance and firm value: beyond greenwashing for sustainable development

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Abstract

Corporate greenwashing is becoming more common as a result of companies' growing awareness of the need to protect the environment and help to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This study analyzes the relationship between corporate environmental governance (CEG) and firm value from short- and long-term perspectives. It is based on balanced panel data of 575 Chinese-listed companies in high-polluting industries from 2012 to 2018. The findings demonstrate that, first, there is no correlation between CEG and firm value during either the current or the first lag period, suggesting that corporate environmental governance has no discernible short-term effects on company value. Second, in the second and third eras, there is a noteworthy positive association between CEG and company value, suggesting that, over time, corporate environmental governance can considerably raise the business's future value. Corporate environmental governance significantly increases business value over the long run. This study goes beyond only offering greenwashing; instead, it offers some policy implications for businesses to be sustainable.

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Funding

“This work has been supported by the “Humanities and Social Sciences Fund of the Ministry of Education of China” “Research on the Driving Mechanism, Realization Path and Policy Optimization of Green Transformation of Manufacturing Enterprises under the Targets of Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutralization (Grant No. 23YJA630025)”, the Fujian Social Science Planning Project “Research on the Dynamic Mechanism and Path of Green Transformation of Manufacturing Enterprises in Fujian Province under the Dual Carbon Targets (Grant No. FJ2022B068)” & “Research on the Influence Mechanism and Effect of Service Industry on the Global Value Chain Status of China's Manufacturing Industry under the Background of RCEP (Grant No. FJ2023B064)”, and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province “Research on the Influencing Mechanism of Business Ecosystem Choice of New Ventures (Grant No.2018A0303130214)”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business, Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou, 363000, China

    Hongzhen Fu

  2. School of Economics and Management, Xiamen University of Technology, Xiamen, 361024, China

    Qingquan Jiang

  3. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Murcia, 30100, Murcia, Spain

    Javier Cifuentes-Faura

  4. School of Cultural Industries and Tourism, Xiamen University of Technology, Xiamen, 361024, China

    Qiuying Chen

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  1. Hongzhen Fu
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Correspondence to Qingquan Jiang or Javier Cifuentes-Faura.

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Fu, H., Jiang, Q., Cifuentes-Faura, J. et al. Corporate environmental governance and firm value: beyond greenwashing for sustainable development. Environ Dev Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-04375-7

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