ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1604316
Integration of Digitalization and Green Finance for Sustainable and Resilient Manufacturing and Service Operations in China: An Empirical Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Management Science and Engineering Research Center, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
- 2Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Macao Polytechnic University, Macao, Macau Region, China
- 3Zhuzhou City Construction Dev. Group Co Ltd,Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China
- 4Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This paper integrates digitalization with green finance strategies to investigate their combined impact on carbon emissions and economic resilience in China's manufacturing and service sectors, particularly within the context of achieving China's 2030 carbon neutrality goals.Leveraging data from the China Emissions Accounts and Datasets (CEADS), a simultaneous equations model based on the Cobb-Douglas production function and the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is employed to quantify the effectiveness of green financial initiatives and digital transformation in carbon emission mitigation. The empirical results reveal substantial regional disparities, with digitalization significantly amplifying the effectiveness of green finance in the more economically and technologically advanced eastern regions, thereby enabling these areas to achieve carbon neutrality sooner compared to the central and western regions. This study highlights the pivotal role of digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, in enhancing transparency, efficiency, and scalability of green financial instruments, including carbon finance and green bonds. Policy recommendations underscore that targeted investments in digital infrastructure combined with robust green finance policies are essential for accelerating regional transitions toward carbon neutrality. The findings provide critical insights for policymakers and investors, not only in China but also globally, illustrating how synergistic digital-green financial frameworks can effectively support sustainable economic growth aligned with international climate objectives.
Keywords: carbon neutrality goals, green finance, digitalization, Carbon finance, Green technology innovation, Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), carbon emissions, Sustainable economic growth
Received: 01 Apr 2025; Accepted: 14 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Sou, Gao and Xiong. 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: Katat Sou, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Macao Polytechnic University, Macao, Macau Region, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.