This study examines the impact of banks’environmental,social,and governance(ESG)disclosure assurance(BEDA)on borrowing enterprises’ESG performance to investigate China’s bank-enterprise loan relationships.Using man...This study examines the impact of banks’environmental,social,and governance(ESG)disclosure assurance(BEDA)on borrowing enterprises’ESG performance to investigate China’s bank-enterprise loan relationships.Using manually collected bank loan relationship data and financial data of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2021,our findings reveal that BEDA significantly enhances borrowers’ESG performance.Moreover,this effect is more pronounced when banks have a higher information demand,better internal controls,and share auditors with borrowers;when borrowers operate in environmentally sensitive industries,and in the period following the Paris Agreement signing.Among the individual ESG subcategories,the impact of BEDA on borrowers’ESG performance is primarily reflected in environmental(E)and social(S)considerations.Finally,we do not find that BEDA significantly suppresses banks’greenwashing.These findings indicate that BEDA has an informational or advisory influence on banks’ESG governance rather than a supervisory role at this stage of sustainability reporting development.This study suggests that policymakers should guide BEDA’s evolution from a passive information tool to a proactive governance tool,facilitating enterprises in achieving sub‐stantive ESG transformations while reducing systemic greenwashing risks.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China[Grant No.72102187,72102197]the General Program of Soft Science Research Project for Chengdu Science and Technology Bureau[Grant No.2025-RK00-00076-ZF]Project of the Center for Systems Science and Enterprise Development,a Key Re‐search Base for Social Sciences in Sichuan Province[Grant No.Xq24C09]and the Chengdu High-Quality Development Research Cen‐ter Project[Grant No.yb2024103].
文摘This study examines the impact of banks’environmental,social,and governance(ESG)disclosure assurance(BEDA)on borrowing enterprises’ESG performance to investigate China’s bank-enterprise loan relationships.Using manually collected bank loan relationship data and financial data of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2021,our findings reveal that BEDA significantly enhances borrowers’ESG performance.Moreover,this effect is more pronounced when banks have a higher information demand,better internal controls,and share auditors with borrowers;when borrowers operate in environmentally sensitive industries,and in the period following the Paris Agreement signing.Among the individual ESG subcategories,the impact of BEDA on borrowers’ESG performance is primarily reflected in environmental(E)and social(S)considerations.Finally,we do not find that BEDA significantly suppresses banks’greenwashing.These findings indicate that BEDA has an informational or advisory influence on banks’ESG governance rather than a supervisory role at this stage of sustainability reporting development.This study suggests that policymakers should guide BEDA’s evolution from a passive information tool to a proactive governance tool,facilitating enterprises in achieving sub‐stantive ESG transformations while reducing systemic greenwashing risks.
