Research On Greenwashing Behavior Of Enterprises And Its Impact On Financing Costs

In 2020,China set the strategic goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality".This goal represents a shift from traditional high-energy consumption and high-emission development to a low-carbon,efficient,and environmentally friendly sustainable development direction.This means that we must carry out systemic changes in areas such as the economy,technology,institutions,industries,and lifestyles.This is not only a national strategy for China to actively respond to climate change but also a major strategic decision based on the inherent requirements for human sustainable development.In the current stage of China’s economic development,strengthening environmental protection through economic means has received much attention.Green finance requires financial institutions to consider corporate environmental responsibility in investment and financing decisions,to guide credit resource allocation,and thus to achieve environmental regulation in the economic field.Since the implementation of green finance policies,its development has been rapid.However,some companies use false green projects to obtain capital support or finance under the name of "green",but use the funds raised for non-environmental projects.This phenomenon of using "environmental protection" to obtain capital support has become a hindrance to the implementation of China’s environmental policies.It not only hinders the optimization and improvement of China’s green finance system but also has adverse effects on China’s use of market economy means to promote environmental protection work.The "greenwashing behavior" studied in this article refers to the opportunistic tendency of companies to have inconsistent words and deeds in their environmental responsibility planning and practice.This form of environmental responsibility response that follows in form but opposes in substance constitutes an obstacle to China’s sustainable development strategy and also runs counter to the original intention of green finance and development.This article selects A-share listed companies in heavily polluted industries on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2009 to 2019 as the research objects,and uses text analysis methods to obtain micro-level data of corporate behavior to test the impact of corporate greenwashing behavior on financing costs.Specifically,this article uses text analysis methods to construct two-dimensional variables representing symbolic environmental behavior and actual environmental behavior based on the text information publicly released by the company,and identifies the company’s greenwashing behavior by comparing the differences between these two behaviors.Based on this,the article explores the impact of corporate "greenwashing behavior" on the equity financing cost and debt financing cost of companies.Finally,relying on the established corporate "greenwashing behavior" variable,the article explores whether corporate environmental responsibility decisions are influenced by decision inertia and homogenous pressure.In addition,based on ownership nature,regional differences,and debt cost differences,this article conducts grouped regression to investigate the heterogeneous impact of corporate greenwashing on equity and debt financing costs.The main conclusions of this article are as follows:(1)Listed companies in heavily-polluted industries that adopt "greenwashing" environmental responsibility decisions can reduce their equity and debt financing costs;(2)Compared with other enterprises,private enterprises and enterprises in eastern regions that engage in "greenwashing" behavior will significantly reduce their financing costs;(3)When the company’s debt financing costs are high,implementing "greenwashing" environmental responsibility behavior can more effectively reduce the company’s debt financing costs;(4)The decision of whether or not a company will choose "greenwashing" environmental responsibility decisions is influenced to a certain extent by the inertia of previous decisions and the pressure of "greenwashing" homogeneity within the industry and region;(5)The introduction of green finance policies has to some extent improved the market investment environment,curbing companies’ use of "greenwashing" behavior to obtain low financing costs.There is currently little research on the economic impact of environmental information disclosure,including issues such as "greenwashing" and inconsistent environmental responsibility behavior,and whether this manipulative disclosure mode will affect a company’s financing costs.The significance of this study is that it can provide theoretical support for improving China’s listed company environmental information disclosure system,strengthening corporate environmental performance evaluation and regulation.The research results can also help investors,creditors,and financial institutions to recognize that environmental responsibility information disclosure reports may be used by companies as self-interested tools for impression management.At the same time,it can provide some reference and advice for banks,individuals,or institutional investors to reasonably evaluate corporate environmental information.