IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v66y2023ics0275531923001332.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Green bond issuance and corporate ESG performance: Steps toward green and low-carbon development

Author

Listed:
  • Zheng, Jinlin
  • Jiang, Yaohui
  • Cui, Yadong
  • Shen, Yue

Abstract

Green financial instruments play an extremely important role in promoting green, low-carbon development and helping to achieve carbon neutrality. But they have also been criticized for the diversion of green funds by companies to “greenwashing”. This paper constructs the empirical models to test the impact of green bonds on corporate ESG performance. It is found that green bond issuance can significantly improve the ESG performance of corporates, on average increasing the ESG scores by about 20.5%. The mechanism test shows that green bond issuance can improve the ease of corporate financing, reduce financing costs and improve the maturity structure of corporate debt. In addition, the easing of financing constraints and the “earmarking” of green funds by green bond can benefit corporate governance and corporate environmental governance, as evidenced by the fact that green bond issuance can improve corporate profitability, growth, green innovation, and green responsibility. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of green bond issuance on ESG performance is more pronounced among private corporates and corporates with high media attention.

Suggested Citation

  • Zheng, Jinlin & Jiang, Yaohui & Cui, Yadong & Shen, Yue, 2023. "Green bond issuance and corporate ESG performance: Steps toward green and low-carbon development," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:66:y:2023:i:c:s0275531923001332
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2023.102007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531923001332
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2023.102007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Galletta, Simona & Mazzù, Sebastiano & Naciti, Valeria & Paltrinieri, Andrea, 2024. "A PRISMA systematic review of greenwashing in the banking industry: A call for action," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    2. Mohammed, Kamel Si & Serret, Vanessa & Urom, Christian, 2024. "The effect of green bonds on climate risk amid economic and environmental policy uncertainties," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 62(PA).
    3. Ma, Xuewen & Liu, Liyan & Zhang, Dongming, 2024. "How green finance tools and electric vehicles minerals sustainability are related?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. Chu, Mingbin & Li, Bingwei & Gu, Weiyu & Dai, Xiajing, 2024. "Role of green finance in enhancing the sustainability in the mining sector in Asia," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Lei, Ni & Miao, Qin & Yao, Xin, 2023. "Does the implementation of green credit policy improve the ESG performance of enterprises? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    6. Rongnan Li & Zhuang Liu & Kai Gan, 2024. "Impact of cities’ issuance of green bonds on local firm performance: evidence from China," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 1-30, September.
    7. Yu, Haiyan & Su, Tao, 2024. "ESG performance and corporate solvency," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    8. Zhang, Yuyao & Li, Yinuo & Chen, Xingyu, 2024. "Does green bond issuance affect stock price crash risk? Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    9. Guo, Kun & Bian, Yuan & Zhang, Dayong & Ji, Qiang, 2024. "ESG performance and corporate external financing in China: The role of rating disagreement," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    10. Shao, Yanmin & Li, Junlong & Zhang, Xueli, 2024. "Outward foreign direct investment and green technology innovation: A company and host country perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    11. Liu, Zhonglu & Pang, Tengfei & Sun, Haibo, 2024. "Decarbonization policy and high-carbon enterprise default risk: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    12. Giulia Ulpiani & Enrique Rebolledo & Nadja Vetters & Pietro Florio & Paolo Bertoldi, 2023. "Funding and financing the zero emissions journey: urban visions from the 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    13. Kaihua Wang, 2024. "Economic policy uncertainty and green finance: evidence from frequency and quantile aspects," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 1-26, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:66:y:2023:i:c:s0275531923001332. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ribaf .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.