The Influence of Corporate Digital Advancement on the ESG Achievement of Heavy-Polluting Enterprises

Abstract

The analysis of the association across corporate digital advancement and business ESG outcomes holds significant influences for businesses aiming to adopt sustainable development principles and achieve exceptional results, particularly in this age of swift advancements in the electronic economy and the pursuit of low-carbon practices. This paper employs a sample of enterprises registered on the A-share stock market in Shenzhen as well as Shanghai, covering the period from 2017 to 2021 as the sample to conduct research. Python crawler technology is employed to assess the extent of corporate digital transformation and investigate its influence on organizational ESG achievement. The empirical evidence indicates that the adoption of digital transformation has a noteworthy and favorable influence on the ESG achievement of organizations. The findings of the mechanism test indicate that the implementation of corporate digital evolution has a favorable influence on the ESG achievement of organizations operating in heavy-polluting industries. This objective is accomplished through the implementation of measures aimed at reducing environmental pollution, consequently, this leads to an improvement in their overall ESG achievement. The analysis of heterogeneity demonstrates that the influence of digital evolution on enhancing ESG achievement is especially significant for organizations that are not nationalized businesses and have a lower number of independent directors. This study aims to further investigate the microeconomic implications of enterprise digital transformation. This study presents empirical evidence and suggests strategies for enterprises to improve their ESG achievement within the framework of the digital economy era.