IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v18y2026i2p752-d1838342.html

Climate Risk Perception and Corporate Green Innovation: From Cognitive Awareness to Behavioral Response

Author

Listed:
  • Xing Bao

    (International Institute of Green Finance, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 100081, China)

  • Xu Zhang

    (School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

Abstract

Enhancing corporate green innovation is a critical component of advancing sustainable transformation and addressing escalating climate-related risks. From a cognition-to-behavior perspective, this paper constructs a climate risk perception index based on annual report texts from Chinese A-share listed firms from 2003 to 2023 and examines its impact on corporate green innovation, as well as the underlying mechanisms. The study finds that stronger climate risk perception significantly promotes both the quality and quantity of corporate green innovation. Mechanism analyses show that this effect operates through alleviating financing constraints, increasing research and development (R&D) investment, and improving environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Heterogeneity tests further indicate that the positive impact is more pronounced among firms located in eastern China and among state-owned firms. Regarding scale heterogeneity, climate risk perception boosts the quantity of green innovation more effectively in large firms and boosts the quality of green innovation more effectively in small firms. This study provides micro-level evidence and theoretical insights into corporate green transformation behaviors under climate uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Xing Bao & Xu Zhang, 2026. "Climate Risk Perception and Corporate Green Innovation: From Cognitive Awareness to Behavioral Response," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-23, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:752-:d:1838342
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/18/2/752/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/18/2/752/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:gam:jsusta:v:18:y:2026:i:2:p:752-:d:1838342. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.