Green supply chain management, green technology innovation and firms' energy consumption intensity

Reducing energy consumption and environmental degradation may be achieved via green technology innovation and green supply chain management. This paper utilizes panel data from Chinese A-share listed firms along with a quasi-natural experiment involving a green supply chain management demonstration and construction project to examine how green supply chain management influences firms' energy consumption intensity, and it also explores the mediating effect of green technological innovation in this relationship. PSM-Staggered DID is employed in this analysis. It is found that green supply chain management significantly reduces the energy consumption intensity of firms, and this conclusion remains valid after parallel trend and its sensitivity test, placebo test, Bacon decomposition and other robustness tests. Heterogeneity analyses show that the inhibitory effect of green supply chain management on energy consumption intensity is stronger in firms with lower absorptive or adaptive capacity and in non-new energy or heavily polluting firms. The mechanism analysis shows that green supply chain management can effectively reduce energy consumption intensity by promoting the quantity, quality and continuity of green technology innovation. This paper provides a policy assessment of the GSCM Firm Demonstration and Construction Project, and provides micro-level empirical evidence of the mitigation mechanism of energy consumption intensity.