The Impact of Corporate Digital Transformation on Carbon Emission Intensity

First Subtopic: Overview

The urgency of reducing carbon emissions has prompted many countries to set ambitious goals for carbon neutrality. China, as a developing country, must find ways to balance economic development with energy conservation and emission reduction. Digital transformation has emerged as a potential solution, promising to mitigate information asymmetries and catalyze production enhancements, leading to improved enterprise efficiency and reduced carbon dioxide emissions. This paper aims to investigate the effect of corporate digital transformation on carbon emission intensity in China, focusing on the microeconomic subject of enterprises.

Second Subtopic: Theoretical Analysis and Hypothesis

The theoretical analysis in this study emphasizes three critical aspects of the impact of digital transformation on carbon intensity: direct impact, impact mechanisms, and driving effects. Firstly, digital transformation can directly reduce carbon intensity by improving enterprise production efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. However, there may be a non-linear relationship between digital transformation and carbon emission intensity due to the complex and extensive nature of the transformation process.

Secondly, digital transformation can indirectly impact carbon emission intensity through environmental governance costs and green technology innovation. Digital transformation can reduce environmental governance costs and foster green technological innovation, leading to lower carbon emission intensity.

Thirdly, digital transformation can drive carbon emission reduction through industrial linkage effects and cohort effects. Digital technologies enable comprehensive innovation of enterprise processes, fostering a collaborative environment that reduces production waste and promotes cleaner production technologies.

Third Subtopic: Data and Methods

The empirical analysis is based on panel data from China's A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2021 and utilizes a two-way fixed effects model to control for unobserved heterogeneity. This approach ensures robustness of the results.

Fourth Subtopic: Results

The benchmark regression results suggest that enterprise digital transformation significantly reduces carbon emission intensity, confirming the first hypothesis. Additionally, the results support a U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and carbon emission intensity, as hypothesized.

Robustness tests confirm the validity of the benchmark regression results. Sensitivity analyses reveal that digital transformation consistently reduces carbon intensity, regardless of sample selection or model specification.

Analysis of the impact mechanisms shows that digital transformation indirectly affects carbon emission intensity through reductions in environmental governance costs and enhancements in green technology innovation, supporting the second hypothesis.

Analysis of the driving effect indicates that enterprise digital transformation can reduce the carbon emission intensity of enterprises within the same industry and region, as well as upstream and downstream of the industrial chain supply chain, supporting the third hypothesis.

Fifth Subtopic: Heterogeneity

Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the carbon emission reduction effect of corporate digital transformation is more pronounced in regions with stronger local government environmental regulations and higher capital and technology intensity.

Sixth Subtopic: Conclusion and Policy Recommendations

This study concludes that corporate digital transformation significantly reduces carbon emission intensity. By harnessing the mechanisms of environmental governance costs and green technology innovation, as well as leveraging industrial linkage and cohort effects, digital transformation can accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of the economy.

Based on these findings, the study proposes policy recommendations for promoting digital transformation and supporting green and low-carbon development, particularly in the context of China's carbon neutrality goals.