Does the “Green Factories” Certification Pilot Policy Improve the ESG Performance of Enterprises? Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China

Green manufacturing is an important path for accelerating the green transformation of the industrial development model. “Green Factories” certification serves as an innovative approach to voluntary environmental regulation, designed to guide firms toward optimal decision making in green manufacturing. Can the voluntary environmental regulation policy be effective, particularly in the absence of a mandatory, strictly environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework environment? Utilizing the “Green Factories” certification pilot policy released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in 2016 as a quasi-natural experiment, this study employs the staggered difference-in-differences (DID) model to estimate the impacts of the voluntary environmental regulation policy on corporate ESG performance. Using a panel dataset of 2585 Chinese A-share listed enterprises from the industrial sector spanning 2012 to 2021, the results show that the “Green Factories” certification pilot policy significantly improves corporate ESG performance, and the results remain consistent after robustness tests. The mechanism analysis reveals that the influencing channel mainly works through green technology innovation, total factor productivity (TFP), and digital transformation. Heterogeneity tests further indicate that the green manufacturing pilot policy has a stronger effect on larger, heavily polluting, private enterprises that receive greater investor attention. This study provides empirical evidence at the micro level on the determinants of corporate ESG performance and voluntary environmental regulation policy evaluation, offering practical insights for promoting green manufacturing engineering development.