Based on the survey data of 839 consumers in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, this article explores the formation mechanism and internal driving force of Chinese consumers’ green consumption, and clarifies the effect of consumers’ pro-environmental awareness components on green consumption and the moderating effect of perceived cost, policy incentives, and face culture. The results of the study show that pro-environmental awareness is the basis for green consumption. However, groups with pro-environmental awareness do not choose green consumption for sure. The transformation from awareness to behavior is also affected by many factors. Consumers’ perceived cost is an important obstacle to green consumption, while the face culture in Chinese society has a certain role in promoting green consumption. In this study, government policy incentives have no significant direct impact and moderating effect on consumers’ green consumption.

The paper aims to investigate Chinese consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for pork characterized by four attributes, namely food safety certification labels, location-of-origin, “free from veterinary drug residues” label, and price, based on a choice experiment conducted among 844 consumers from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, China. A Random Parameter Logit model was estimated to elicit consumers’ WTP. The results showed that Jiangsu consumers’ WTP for pork with a “Organic Food” certification (26.78 Yuan) was the highest among all attributes, followed by “Green Food” certification (20.22 Yuan), “free from veterinary drug residues” label (23.18 Yuan), and location-of-origin (12.77 Yuan). However, there was only a moderate preference for “Safe Food” certification (8.10 Yuan). In addition, respondents from the more developed region (i.e., Jiangsu) had significantly higher WTP for all attributes than respondents from Anhui, a less developed region. The Random Parameter Logit model shows that better educational attainment and higher income were two factors that were associated with a higher WTP. The main policy recommendations are that public awareness of the different types of verifications should be improved and that authorization of certification logos should be enforced strictly so that food with certification logos are always reflective of the standard being followed.

This study develops a multiple mediating model for exploring the link between environmental regulation and financial performance through green dynamic capability, sustainability exploration/exploitation innovation, based on the data from 355 Chinese manufacturing firms. Empirical results support a mediating role of green dynamic capability and sustainability exploration/exploitation in the link between environmental regulation and financial performance, respectively. What’s more, our findings indicate that environmental regulation can help improve financial performance via two multiple mediating paths, i.e., green dynamic capability and sustainability exploration innovation, as well as green dynamic capability and sustainability exploitation innovation. These key findings will help to understand how important green dynamic capability and sustainable innovation is when Chinese manufacturing firms establish a business-politics tie.

The links among firms’ environmental regulation, innovation process, and sustainable development has been analyzed, but a research gap still remains in terms of environmental commitment and different types of sustainable innovation in firms’ sustainability. Through collecting a dataset of 380 valid respondents from Chinese manufacturing firms, this paper incorporates evironmental regulation, environmental commitment, sustainability exploration innovation, sustainability exploitation innovation, environmental performance, and business performance into a multiple mediating effect model. Our key emperical findings are as follows: (1) Environmental regulation not only cannot affect environmental performance and business performance, but also cannot affect the two types of firm performance through sustainability exploration innovation or sustainability exploitation innovation; (2) The relationship between environmental regulation, environmental performance (or business performance) is subsequently mediated by both environmental commitment and sustainability exploitation innovation; (3) Environmental regulation does not affect environmental performance (or business performance) through environmental commitment and sustainability exploration innovation. These results do, however, support the Porter Hypothesis in terms of revealing a new multiple mediating effect path dominated by environmental commitment and sustainability exploitation innovation. Our findings can provide a better understanding of how environmental commitment and sustainability exploitation innovation play a key effect in helping firms relieve the pressure from environmental regulation, and thus improve their environmental management while keeping their competitive edge.

The aim of the paper was to assess how consumers evaluate organic labeled fruits and to what extent they are willing to pay a premium for fresh fruits with organic labels. A double-hurdle model is applied to data obtained by interviewing 407 fresh fruit consumers in nine Chinese cities. Willingness-to-pay a premium was modeled as a function of a series of demographic, socio-economic variables, plus fruit attributes, perceptions of fruit safety, and risk attitudes. Results indicate that the most important factors influencing willingness to pay a premium involved positive attitudes toward organic label, attention to fruit safety, the perception of importance of fruit attributes. Moreover, the more income consumers earn, the more likely they would be willing to pay a premium for organic fresh fruits. The recorded consumer interest in safety and quality of fresh fruits reveals that a promising market for organic fruits could be developed by an adequate knowledge on organic label and an effective market monitoring system.

The link between green organizational identity (GOI) and corporate environmental performance (CEP) has been investigated, but existing studies have no consistent conclusion. A significant research gap remains regarding the mediating role of sustainability exploration innovation (SER), sustainability exploitation innovation (SEI), and the moderating role of government environmental regulation (GER). This study explored the relationship between GOI and CEP in a moderated meditation model which includes SER, SEI, and GER. Using structural equation modelling and bootstrap method based on data sets from of 380 Chinese companies, the results show that: (1) GOI promotes SER, thereby enhancing CEP; (2) GOI promotes SEI, thereby enhancing CEP; (3) GER can positively moderate the indirect effect of GOI on CEP via SER; (4) GER negatively moderate the indirect effect of GOI on CEP via SEI. These findings suggest that firms choose different innovative ways between SER and SEI to improve CEP which depends on different levels of GER in China.