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Digitalization and environment: how does ICT affect enterprise environmental performance?

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Abstract

Despite the increasing use of digital technology in industrial production, how industrial digitalization affects the environmental performance of production activities remains unclear. This research contributes to the literature on the relationship between industrial digitalization and enterprise environmental performance by employing a large sample of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. Results indicate that the environmental performance of manufacturing enterprises has been significantly improved in the process of industrial digital transformation. Structural and technology effects are the transmission channels; additionally, structural effect is the main contributor to the positive environmental effects of information and communications technology (ICT) penetration. Industrial digitalization reduces the production scale of heavy-polluting enterprises and improves product innovation and green total factor productivity, but it has an insignificant effect on total factor productivity. Moreover, industrial digitalization improves enterprise environmental performance by introducing front-end cleaner production technologies, rather than by increasing pipe-end pollutant treatment facilities.

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Funding

This project is supported by the Youth Program of National Social Science Foundation of China (grant no. 20CJY031).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center of the Central China for Economic and Social Development, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, Jiangxi, China

    Huwei Wen & Chien-Chiang Lee

  2. School of Economics and Management, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, Jiangxi, China

    Huwei Wen & Chien-Chiang Lee

  3. School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, Liaoning, China

    Ziyu Song

Authors
  1. Huwei Wen
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  2. Chien-Chiang Lee
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  3. Ziyu Song
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Contributions

Huwei Wen: resources, methodology, formal analysis, writing (review and editing).

Chien-Chiang Lee: conceptualization, supervision, writing (review and editing), corresponding author.

Ziyu Song: data curation, visualization, writing (original draft).

All authors provided critical feedback and helped shape the research, analysis, and manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chien-Chiang Lee.

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Responsible Editor: Ilhan Ozturk

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 11 Descriptive statistics of variables
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Fig. 1
figure 1

Kernel density distribution of ICT investment and ICT services

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Wen, H., Lee, CC. & Song, Z. Digitalization and environment: how does ICT affect enterprise environmental performance?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 54826–54841 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14474-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14474-5

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