ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1497502
Synergistic effects of environmental credit evaluation and emissions trading in promoting enterprise carbon reduction
Provisionally accepted
- 1Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
- 2School of Accounting, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Liaoning, China
- 3Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- 4School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, Beijing, China
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This study empirically analyzes the synergistic effects of China's environmental credit evaluation system and carbon emissions trading policy on enterprise carbon emission intensity. Employing a difference-in-differences approach on 27,718 firm-year observations from China's A-share listed industrial companies over the period 2007 to 2021, the findings indicate that the dual pilot policy (DPP) significantly reduced carbon emission intensity by approximately 0.184 units. This impact is markedly stronger than that observed when either policy is implemented individually, demonstrating a clear synergistic effect. Mechanism tests reveal that the DPP primarily reduces carbon emission intensity through supervisory mechanisms involving multiple governance bodies, such as market oversight, media scrutiny, and public supervision. Furthermore, the DPP drives reductions in carbon emission intensity through corporate behavior adjustment mechanisms, including increasing environmental investment, promoting green technological innovation, optimizing energy consumption, and enhancing green development efficiency. The results of the heterogeneity analysis indicate that the DPP has a greater impact on reducing emissions in non-state-owned enterprises, mature enterprises, high-carbon and high-pollution industries. This study fills a gap in empirical research on the synergistic effects of the environmental credit evaluation system and the carbon emissions trading pilot policy, providing theoretical support and practical reference for optimizing environmental policy and facilitating corporate low-carbon transition.
Keywords: Low-carbon transition, Environmental credit evaluation, carbon emissions trading, Dual pilot policy, Synergistic effects
Received: 17 Sep 2024; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang and Luo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Qingfeng Luo, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
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