In the Context of China's Mineral Resource Scarcity: How Does Digitalization Promote Low-carbon Transformation of Corporate Energy?

In the context of growing global energy demand and advancing climate change, digital technologies offer opportunities for a low-carbon energy transition. Through such technologies, including big data, artificial intelligence and the internet of things, digitalization enables intelligent optimization, flexible management and efficient operation of energy systems, access to renewable energy, and reducing both energy consumption and carbon emissions. Grounded in the data of listed companies from 2011 to 2020, this study discusses the influence of enterprise digitalization on the low-carbon energy transition. The results show that enterprises' digital development will boost their low-carbon energy transformation effectively. Digitalization promotes enterprises to achieve this transformation by aiding them in improving green technology innovation, optimizing supply chains and improving internal control level. In addition, a heterogeneity analysis of environmental regulation shows that in regions with strong environmental regulation, the promotion effect of enterprise digitalization on low-carbon energy transformation is more significant. The regional heterogeneity in the results suggests that eastern and central enterprises have a stronger promotion effect on enterprise energy low-carbon transformation in digital transformation. Therefore, such transformations should be regarded as important, and they should be incorporated into environmental protection policy. This would include promoting low-carbon technology innovation, combining environmental protection regulation with carbon emission reduction and implementing suggestions for reducing carbon emissions and sustainable development goals.