The Exploration of a Causal Mechanism for Corporate Environmental Performance in Hydropower Engineering Enterprises: Evidence from China and the United States

Sustainable resource and environmental development has become a crucial scientific issue that urgently needs to be addressed. Hence, the issue of green social responsibility has undergone profound exploration. Hydropower engineering, as a significant clean energy source, exhibits promising prospects for fulfilling green social responsibilities. This article analyzed the causal mechanism and behavioral evolution of green social responsibility fulfillment in hydropower between China and the United States by employing event causality extraction, content analysis, and system dynamics as research methodologies. This study revealed a causal relationship between the fulfillment of green social responsibilities in hydropower projects and ethical governance, green development, and risk response. Through the content analysis of the causal relationships, it was found that China expressed a strong emotional inclination toward green development, whereas the United States showed positive values in terms of risk response. Through the simulation of system dynamics, this study found that the causal driving mechanisms of the two countries were generally favorable at different dimensional levels. Among them, under endogenous driving forces, the promoting effect of ethical governance and green development by risk response was more obvious. Under basic driving forces, green development has the most significant driving effect on the fulfillment of green social responsibilities in both countries.