School of Economics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
School of Management and Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 2001 Longxiang Avenue, Longgang District, Shenzhen 518172, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Oct 7;19(19):12846. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191912846.
In recent years, the rate of climate change appears to have accelerated, and digital transformation and environmental performance have become increasingly important in the field of corporate social responsibility. Previous studies have mainly focused on the economic consequences of digital transformation. However, research on the effect of digital transformation on reducing firms' emissions is relatively rare. This study focused on two kinds of typical environmental pollutants: waste gas emissions and wastewater emissions. Using data on Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2018 and adopting the fixed effect model to investigate the emission reduction effect and mechanism of digital transformation on waste gas emissions and wastewater emissions of firms, we found the following: (1) digital transformation significantly reduces pollution emissions; (2) the relationship is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), high-polluting enterprises, and economically developed regions; (3) to gain a more in-depth understanding of how digital transformation affects the pollution emission behavior of firms, we further conducted mechanism tests and found that digital transformation reduces pollution by increasing total factor productivity and green innovation and improving firms' internal controls. The above conclusions still hold after a series of robustness tests, including alternative econometric specifications and overcoming potential endogeneity with an instrumental variable. Overall, our findings provide new insights into the effect of digital transformation on environmental pollution emissions. Hence, all governments should pay more attention to digital transformation for sustainable development and improved environmental quality.
近年来，气候变化的速度似乎有所加快，数字转型和环境绩效在企业社会责任领域变得越来越重要。以前的研究主要集中在数字转型的经济后果上。然而，关于数字转型对减少企业排放的影响的研究相对较少。本研究关注两种典型的环境污染物：废气排放和废水排放。利用 2010 年至 2018 年中国上市公司的数据，采用固定效应模型，研究了数字转型对企业废气排放和废水排放的减排效应和机制，我们发现：（1）数字转型显著降低了污染排放；（2）在国有企业（SOEs）、高污染企业和经济发达地区，这种关系更为明显；（3）为了更深入地了解数字转型如何影响企业的污染排放行为，我们进一步进行了机制测试，发现数字转型通过提高全要素生产率和绿色创新以及改善企业内部控制来减少污染。在一系列稳健性测试后，包括替代计量经济学规格和使用工具变量克服潜在的内生性，上述结论仍然成立。总体而言，我们的研究结果为数字转型对环境污染排放的影响提供了新的见解。因此，各国政府都应更加重视数字转型，以实现可持续发展和改善环境质量。
