IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v88y2026ics1544612325024249.html

How customer carbon risk propagates upstream: evidence from its impact on suppliers’ loan costs

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Jun
  • Qian, Mei
  • Tan, Changchun
  • Zhou, Peng

Abstract

This study examines how downstream customer carbon risk transmits along supply chains to influence upstream suppliers’ loan costs, using U.S. listed firms’ carbon emissions and bank loan data from 2009–2021. We show that higher exposure to customer carbon risk significantly raises suppliers’ borrowing costs, primarily through worsened credit ratings and increased earnings volatility. The effect is more pronounced for non-state-owned firms, smaller firms, and those operating in less concentrated industries. These findings reveal a novel supply chain channel for carbon risk transmission and offer valuable implications for financial institutions’ risk pricing and for policymakers seeking to facilitate low-carbon transitions via the financial system.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Jun & Qian, Mei & Tan, Changchun & Zhou, Peng, 2026. "How customer carbon risk propagates upstream: evidence from its impact on suppliers’ loan costs," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:88:y:2026:i:c:s1544612325024249
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.109175
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325024249
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.109175?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. Carmen Gallucci & Rosalia Santulli & Riccardo Tipaldi, 2025. "ESG Disclosure and Access to Credit: A Configurational Analysis of European Listed Firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5), pages 5838-5856, July.
    2. Esther Shears & Jonas Meckling & Jared J. Finnegan, 2025. "How central banks manage climate and energy transition risks," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 10(4), pages 470-478, April.
    3. Bakó, Barna & Neszveda, Gábor, 2024. "An aspirational perspective on the negative risk-return relationship," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    4. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2003. "Enjoying the Quiet Life? Corporate Governance and Managerial Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1043-1075, October.
    5. Ouyang, Ruolan & Zhuang, Chengkai & Wang, Tingting & Zhang, Xuan, 2022. "Network analysis of risk transmission among energy futures: An industrial chain perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    6. Sudarshan Jayaraman, 2008. "Earnings Volatility, Cash Flow Volatility, and Informed Trading," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 46(4), pages 809-851, September.
    7. Beladi, Hamid & Chao, Chi Chur & Hu, May, 2018. "Does tax avoidance behavior affect bank loan contracts for Chinese listed firms?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 104-116.
    8. Philip E. Strahan, 1999. "Borrower risk and the price and nonprice terms of bank loans," Staff Reports 90, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    9. Kathleen Herbohn & Ru Gao & Peter Clarkson, 2019. "Evidence on Whether Banks Consider Carbon Risk in Their Lending Decisions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 155-175, August.
    10. Busch, Timo & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2007. "Emerging carbon constraints for corporate risk management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3-4), pages 518-528, May.
    11. Bose, Sudipta & Minnick, Kristina & Shams, Syed, 2021. "Does carbon risk matter for corporate acquisition decisions?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Zhiyang Hui & Haoyu Li & Ahmed A. Elamer, 2024. "Financing sustainability: How environmental disclosures shape bank lending decisions in emerging markets," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 3940-3967, September.
    13. Dimitrov, Valentin & Palia, Darius & Tang, Leo, 2015. "Impact of the Dodd-Frank act on credit ratings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(3), pages 505-520.
    14. Lutz G. Arnold & John G. Riley, 2009. "On the Possibility of Credit Rationing in the Stiglitz-Weiss Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2012-2021, December.
    15. Sudheer Chava & Michael R. Roberts, 2008. "How Does Financing Impact Investment? The Role of Debt Covenants," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(5), pages 2085-2121, October.
    16. Torsten Ehlers & Frank Packer & Kathrin de Greiff, 2022. "The pricing of carbon risk in syndicated loans: which risks are priced and why?," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Statistics for Sustainable Finance, volume 56, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Malafry, Laurence & Brinca, Pedro, 2022. "Climate policy in an unequal world: Assessing the cost of risk on vulnerable households," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    18. Tian, Ye & Zhao, Mengyang, 2025. "Does managerial climate risk perception improve environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance? Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Iftekhar Hasan & Haekwon Lee & Buhui Qiu & Anthony Saunders, 2026. "Climate-related disclosure commitment of the lenders, credit rationing, and borrower environmental performance," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 74-117, March.
    2. Thomas R. Kubick & G. Brandon Lockhart & David C. Mauer, 2024. "Industry tournament incentives and debt contracting," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 1281-1321, November.
    3. Li, Jun & Jin, Yihang & Zhou, Peng, 2025. "Do banks price firms' biodiversity risk? Evidence from the Kunming declaration," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    4. Zhong, Tingyong & Ma, Fuqi & Sun, Fangcheng & Li, Jiangna, 2024. "Can green finance reduce corporate carbon risk?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Shu, Hao & Tan, Weiqiang, 2023. "Does carbon control policy risk affect corporate ESG performance?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    6. Zhou, Peng & Li, Xiang & Shi, Xing & Jiang, Kun, 2025. "Spillover of the carbon risk along the supply chain: Evidence from the U.S. corporate bond market," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    7. Karel Hrazdil & Deniz Anginer & Jiyuan Li & Ray Zhang, 2024. "Climate Reputation and Bank Loan Contracting," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(4), pages 875-896, July.
    8. Nguyen, Quyen & Diaz-Rainey, Ivan & Kuruppuarachchi, Duminda & McCarten, Matthew & Tan, Eric K.M., 2023. "Climate transition risk in U.S. loan portfolios: Are all banks the same?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    9. Qingxia (Jenny) Wang, 2023. "Financial effects of carbon risk and carbon disclosure: A review," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(4), pages 4175-4219, December.
    10. Knyazeva, Anzhela & Knyazeva, Diana, 2012. "Does being your bank’s neighbor matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1194-1209.
    11. Altunbaş, Yener & Khan, Atiqur & Thornton, John, 2023. "Do M&As impact firm carbon intensity?11The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the institutions with which they are affiliated.," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    12. Barroso, Raúl & Duan, Tinghua & Guo, Siyue (Sarina) & Kowalewski, Oskar, 2024. "Board gender diversity reform and corporate carbon emissions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    13. Koharki, Kevin & Watson, Luke, 2025. "Risk-taking incentives and firm credit risk11The authors thank Kristine W. Hankins (editor), the anonymous associate editor and two anonymous reviewers, workshop participants at Lehigh University, Northwestern University, Southern Methodist Universit," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    14. Chia-Ying Chan & Iftekhar Hasan & Chih-Yung Lin, 2021. "Agency cost of CEO perquisites in bank loan contracts," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1221-1258, May.
    15. Danisman, Gamze Ozturk & Tarazi, Amine, 2024. "ESG activity and bank lending during financial crises," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    16. Huasheng Gao & Huai Zhang & Jin Zhang, 2018. "Employee turnover likelihood and earnings management: evidence from the inevitable disclosure doctrine," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1424-1470, December.
    17. Sung C. Bae & Iftekhar Hasan & Liuling Liu & Haizhi Wang, 2025. "How Do Banks Respond to Supplier IPOs?," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(3), pages 111-129, August.
    18. Chy, Mahfuz & Kyung, Hoyoun, 2023. "The effect of bond market transparency on bank loan contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2).
    19. Chen, Jiayuan & Gong, Di & Muckley, Cal, 2020. "Stock market illiquidity, bargaining power and the cost of borrowing," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 181-206.
    20. Duran, Miguel A., 2022. "The risk–return relation in the corporate loan market," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation

    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:88:y:2026:i:c:s1544612325024249. 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.