Purpose This study aims to investigate the impact of public environmental supervision on corporate greenwashing behavior. Design/methodology/approach Using manually collected data from China’s 12369 environmental complaint platform, this study constructs a measure of public environmental supervision and match it with a sample of A-share listed firms in heavily polluting industries over the study period. Using panel regression models, this study conducts empirical tests and address endogeneity concerns through a battery of robustness checks. Findings Public environmental supervision exerts a statistically and significantly inhibitory effect on corporate greenwashing. This effect is further amplified by formal government environmental regulation, indicating a complementary and synergistic relationship between informal societal oversight and formal institutional enforcement. Mechanism analysis reveals that public supervision curbs greenwashing through three distinct channels: alleviating information asymmetry, stimulating substantive green investment and enhancing executives’ environmental awareness and ethical norms. Furthermore, direct public participation channels (e.g. WeChat submissions and telephone complaints) are more effective than indirect advocacy (e.g. proposals from People’s Congress deputies). The inhibitory effect is also more pronounced in regions with higher public environmental sensitivity and stronger institutional capacity to respond to public demands. Practical implications Findings provide actionable implications for policymakers and market participants seeking to mitigate information asymmetry in green finance market. They validate a synergistic governance model that integrates public oversight with government enforcement, which is crucial for advancing China’s dual-carbon transition goals. In addition, the results underscore the need to expand the environmental responsibility dimension of corporate governance systems with Chinese characteristics, encouraging firms to align symbolic environmental commitments with substantive action. Social implications By demonstrating how state-led institutionalized public supervision can aggregate fragmented societal environmental demands into targeted governance pressure, this study provides a viable paradigm for reconciling corporate private interests with public environmental welfare, contributing to the broader societal objective of achieving sustainable development and enhancing the legitimacy of market-oriented economic transition in emerging economies. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on informal environmental governance by illuminating the information aggregation-government responsiveness pathway through which institutionalized public supervision operates in a transitional economy context. It develops and empirically validates an analytical framework for public-government collaborative governance of strategic environmental behaviors, moving beyond the traditional single-actor governance paradigm to highlight the interdependence of formal and informal institutions.
Wang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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