The Impact of Green Technology Innovation on Capital Cost of Heavy Polluting Enterprises: The Mediating Effect of Carbon Performance

Abstract

Under the background of the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals proposed in 2020, making heavy polluting enterprises realize that low-carbon measures can bring enough economic benefits is conducive to enhancing their enthusiasm to adopt green behaviors. Using data from 320 listed companies in heavily polluting industries from 2006 to 2019 as samples, our study used multiple linear regression to explore the relationship between green technology innovation, carbon performance, board characteristics and cost of capital. Based on these data, we draw the following conclusions: green technology innovation and carbon performance are significantly negatively correlated with capital cost, carbon performance plays a mediating role in the relationship between green technology innovation and capital cost, and board characteristics play a moderating role in the relationship between green technology innovation and carbon performance. These conclusions bring some implications for enterprises to develop and implement low-carbon measures and reduce capital cost.

Keywords

• green manufacturing
• technology and innovation
• carbon performance
• capital cost
• characteristics of board of directors