Research on the Mechanisms and Pathways of Voluntary Environmental Regulation Driving Green Technological Innovation: An Empirical Examination Using Sample Data from Heavy Polluting Enterprises

Against the backdrop of environmental governance systems transitioning from command-and-control to multi-stakeholder collaboration, elucidating the mechanisms and pathways through which voluntary environmental regulations influence green technological innovation in heavily polluting enterprises holds significant implications for advancing green innovation and high-quality development. This paper systematically examines the synergistic mechanisms of command-and-control versus voluntary environmental regulations on green technological innovation in heavily polluting enterprises, utilising data from listed companies in China’s high-pollution industries between 2008 and 2024. Unlike previous studies predominantly focused on the impact of a single regulatory type, this study reveals an interactive effect between the two: moderate command-and-control regulation provides essential institutional support for voluntary environmental regulation, such as ISO 14001 certification, thereby generating a complementary enhancement effect. However, overly stringent command-and-control regulation diverts innovation resources from enterprises, thereby suppressing the incentive effect of voluntary regulation. This conclusion transcends the traditional analytical paradigm within environmental regulation theory that treats command-and-control and voluntary regulations as mutually exclusive opposites, revealing instead a dynamic relationship where both synergistic and constraining effects coexist. This discovery provides crucial theoretical underpinnings and empirical evidence for constructing an environmental governance system that combines command-and-control constraints with flexible incentives, ensuring compatibility between policy objectives and corporate behaviour.