The synergy effect of energy security and carbon-haze collaborative management: From the perspective of biased technological progress.

It is important to ensure energy security and achieve carbon-haze collaborative management for sustainable development. Reducing imported energy dependence is necessary to maintain energy security, while its impact on environmental quality remains unclear. From the perspective of biased technological progress, this paper estimates the level of biased technological progress towards self-sufficient energy by a heterogeneous stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) function, and then empirically examines whether self-sufficient energy biased technological progress has a dampening effect on haze pollution and carbon emissions. It is found that: (1) Self-sufficient energy biased technological progress can effectively reduce haze pollution and carbon emissions, achieving a synergistic effect between energy security and carbon-haze collaborative management. (2) "Efficiency enhancement" and "quality improvement" are the essential mechanisms for the synergistic effect. (3) Environmental regulation, abundant resource and technology endowments can enhance the haze reduction effect. And the lower dependence on foreign trade and stable global economic policy environment are more conducive to achieving carbon-haze collaborative control. (4) In the Eastern and Western regions, self-sufficient energy biased technology can be sped up to alleviate haze pollution. The findings can enrich the research exploring pollution control from the perspective of biased technological progress, and provide policy recommendations for promoting high-quality development.

A pathway towards corporate sustainability: Does media attention matter?

Examining informal institutional drivers of corporate sustainability is crucial. This study employs a sample of A-share listed firms in China from 2007 to 2020 to empirically examine the relationship between media coverage and ESG performance. It is demonstrated that media attention enhances corporate accountability, especially the print media and positive attention. And environmental investments and green innovation are the main mechanisms. It also reveals that media attention has a greater impact on larger firms, those with better internal controls, firms located in the eastern region, and manufacturing firms. Our findings help deepen the understanding of media's role in corporate development and highlight how informal institutions can promote sustainable economic growth in developing countries.

The Impact of China's ETS on Corporate Green Governance Based on the Perspective of Corporate ESG Performance.

To achieve China's "dual carbon" and common prosperity goals, corporate green governance is crucial. A key tool for promoting green growth is environmental legislation, particularly market-based regulation. With China's carbon emission trading as a natural experiment, we adopt the DID method to quantitatively compare the gap between ESG performance of pilot and non-pilot carbon trading enterprises before and after policy implementation, thereby examining the impact, mechanism and optimization conditions of market-based environmental policy on corporate green governance based on panel data of China's A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2019. In addition, PSM-DID and other methods are employed for preventing estimation bias caused by sample self-selection bias. It is found that: (1) the green governance level of pilot firms can be considerably improved by a carbon emission trading scheme (ETS); (2) the ETS primarily encourages enterprises to uphold their ESG obligations through increasing regulatory pressure from the government and corporate involvement in clean innovation; (3) enhancing regional marketization can strengthen the impact of carbon trading policy, and enterprises that are large and non-state-owned exhibit better performance with regard to green governance as a result of carbon trading policy. This paper provides practical experience for promoting corporate green governance to achieve the "dual carbon" goal based on a market mechanism from a micro perspective.