IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v75y2025ics1544612325001850.html

Green innovation through artificial intelligence technology: Enhancing environmental, social, and governance performance

Author

Listed:
  • Weng, Min

Abstract

This extensive research aims to ascertain the prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) technology integration in publicly listed manufacturing firms in China from 2012 to 2022 by analyzing their annual reports using advanced supervised machine learning methodologies. Our thorough analysis rigorously scrutinizes the ramifications of such integration on the companies’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance metrics. The findings are significant: the adoption of AI technology exerts a notably positive influence on ESG performance, with green innovation emerging as a critical intermediary in this correlation.

Suggested Citation

  • Weng, Min, 2025. "Green innovation through artificial intelligence technology: Enhancing environmental, social, and governance performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:75:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325001850
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.106921
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325001850
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.106921?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhou, Fangzhao & Zhu, Jichen & Qi, Yawei & Yang, Jun & An, Yunbi, 2021. "Multi-dimensional corporate social responsibilities and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Wan, Jieru & Yin, Libo & Wu, You, 2024. "Return and volatility connectedness across global ESG stock indexes: Evidence from the time-frequency domain analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 397-428.
    3. Yi, Fang & Cao, Chenru & Xu, Jingxuan, 2024. "How antitrust enforcement affects corporate ESG performance? Evidence from merger review cases in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1730-1746.
    4. Wang, Juxian & Ma, Mengdi & Dong, Tianyi & Zhang, Zheyuan, 2023. "Do ESG ratings promote corporate green innovation? A quasi-natural experiment based on SynTao Green Finance's ESG ratings," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    5. He, Feng & Guo, Xinyao & Yue, Pengpeng, 2024. "Media coverage and corporate ESG performance: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    6. Sunder, Jayanthi & Sunder, Shyam V. & Zhang, Jingjing, 2017. "Pilot CEOs and corporate innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 209-224.
    7. Jun Su & Lin Xue, 2024. "ESG Performance, Demographic Trend, and Labour Investment Efficiency in China," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(20), pages 2207-2213, November.
    8. Lian, Yonghui & Ye, Tao & Zhang, Yiyang & Zhang, Lin, 2023. "How does corporate ESG performance affect bond credit spreads: Empirical evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 352-371.
    9. Han, Yingwei & Li, Jie, 2022. "Should investors include green bonds in their portfolios? Evidence for the USA and Europe," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. He, Feng & Du, Hanyu & Yu, Bo, 2022. "Corporate ESG performance and manager misconduct: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    11. Huang, Kaixing & Sim, Nicholas & Zhao, Hong, 2020. "Corporate social responsibility, corporate financial performance and the confounding effects of economic fluctuations: A meta-analysis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Heese, Jonas & Pérez-Cavazos, Gerardo & Peter, Caspar David, 2022. "When the local newspaper leaves town: The effects of local newspaper closures on corporate misconduct," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 445-463.
    13. Ding, David K. & Ferreira, Christo & Wongchoti, Udomsak, 2016. "Does it pay to be different? Relative CSR and its impact on firm value," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 86-98.
    14. Pan, Zhijie & Zheng, Yanting & Xu, Dandan & Wang, Ting, 2024. "How green screening influences risk transmission among stock-bond indices: Insight into the dependence structure," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(PA).
    15. Xu, Dandan & Guo, Dongli & Yue, Pengpeng & Li, Mengshi, 2024. "Household green consumption: Does digital inclusion matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Qiang & Zhang, Siqi & Li, Rongrong, 2026. "Artificial intelligence in the renewable energy transition: The critical role of financial development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 226(PA).
    2. Huang, Qianxuan & Gao, Li, 2025. "Technological empowerment: The pathways of artificial intelligence influencing corporate ESG performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PF).
    3. Li, Zhe & Yang, Huiyu & Zhang, Tingting, 2025. "Impact of enterprise artificial intelligence development on human capital structure," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. Yiping Sun & Dengyi Luo & Longyu Tao & Xiaocong Xu, 2025. "The asymmetric influence of ESG performance on corporate innovation: understanding the role of supply chain transmission," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Li, Huanyu & Wu, Hao & Rao, Jian, 2025. "Impact of artificial intelligence on corporate green transformation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Junwei & Xing, Yafei & Xiao, Daibo, 2025. "An empirical study on the relationship between executives' financial background and corporate ESG performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Sun, Ze & Cai, Cen & Tan, Haoyu & Ji, Heli & Tian, Grace (Li), 2025. "Corporate ESG performance and competitive strategies from the perspective of financial markets: Strategic significance of firm size," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Xu, Siyun & Bai, Xiaodong & Chen, Xia, 2025. "Corporate environmental, social, and governance performance, investor attention, and corporate development capability—An empirical examination based on moderating and threshold effects," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    4. Tang, Xinhui & Du, Shujun & Deng, Wenwen, 2025. "Business innovation in digital startups: A case study of an AI startup," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Ji, Heli & Yu, Zhihai & Tian, Grace (Li) & Wang, David (Han) & Wen, Yue, 2025. "Market competition, environmental, social and corporate governance investment, and enterprise green innovation performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    6. Yin, Huairuo & Tang, Yu & Jin, Hao, 2025. "Sustainability in the supply chain, environmental, social and corporate governance performance, and corporate value," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Yang, Jinjuan & Qian, Kaihao & Sun, Yiyao, 2025. "Do investors pay attention to the long-term sustainable company development?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    8. Sun, Tingxuan & Liu, Suqin & Guo, Min, 2025. "Effects of green finance and digital transformation on enhancing corporate ESG performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. Chen, Ying & Wang, Zhitao & Ye, Fan, 2025. "How do prestigious CEOs change corporate ESG initiatives?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 104(PA).
    10. Li, Junjun & Wu, Tong & Hu, Boqiang & Pan, Dongliang & Zhou, Yaqiong, 2025. "Artificial intelligence and corporate ESG performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    11. Cai, Cen & Yang, Qianyi & Tu, Da & Tian, Grace Li & Tu, Yongqian, 2025. "Catalytic effect of the Shanghai–Hong Kong Stock Connect policy on corporate ESG performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    12. Duan, Dingkang & Wei, Ran & Wang, Chao & Xia, Bingyu, 2025. "Opportunity or obstacle? Climate risk disclosure and corporate ESG performance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    13. Chen, Che & Chen, Song & Wu, Dingwen, 2025. "The impact of ESG performance on R&D investment stability: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    14. Tang, Meihuan, 2025. "Data element utilization and firm value," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    15. Wang, Qing & Xu, Yaping, 2025. "Can industry competition stimulate enterprises ESG performance?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 104(PA).
    16. Yao, Meijie & Chen, Wei, 2025. "Enhancing ESG performance through public fund shareholding," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    17. Fan, Ruoyu & Ren, Ziming, 2025. "Effects of CEO inside debt on corporate ESG behavior: role of major shareholders," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    18. Liu, Fang-Ju, 2025. "ESG performance, managerial ability and corporate investment efficiency," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    19. Feng, Yiqiang & Jin, Xingye & Liu, Zhe & Zhang, Zhanyu, 2025. "Technological links among firms and the peer effect of ESG responsibility performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    20. Fu, Xintong & Zhang, Xiangwei, 2025. "Tax burden and enterprises' ESG performance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:75:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325001850. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.