Green banking lending relationships and corporate carbon disclosure: evidence from China

To achieve carbon emission reduction targets, the Chinese government has actively promoted green financial policies and established a green banking credit mechanism. This paper uses panel data from Chinese listed companies from 2008 to 2022 to empirically assess whether the green banking credit mechanism can effectively promote corporate carbon information disclosure. The research findings indicate that the green banking credit mechanism significantly enhances corporate carbon information disclosure levels and further improves corporate carbon information disclosure behaviour through two mechanisms: alleviating financing constraints and strengthening environmental regulation. This relationship has a more pronounced positive impact on state-owned enterprises, highly leveraged enterprises, enterprises with strong green innovation capabilities, and enterprises with a corporate governance structure that separates the roles of chairman and CEO. The findings of this study indicate that the green banking credit mechanism plays a positive role in promoting corporate carbon information disclosure. They also suggest that differentiated green finance strategies should be implemented based on corporate characteristics to more effectively achieve national emissions reduction targets.