Amid growing global concerns regarding sustainable governance, understanding the drivers of ESG disclosure is vital for promoting transparency and responsible corporate behavior. This study examines the peer effects of ESG disclosure among 32,187 observations from Chinese A-share listed firms between 2010 and 2021. This research employs an instrumental variable approach based on stock-specific idiosyncratic returns estimated via the Carhart four-factor model to address endogeneity concerns. The results confirm significant peer effects, suggesting that firms adjust ESG practices in response to their industry counterparts. These effects are significantly moderated by firm-level characteristics, including information asymmetry, corporate reputation, and market competition, as well as by external conditions such as economic policy uncertainty, business environment volatility, and institutional quality. This research defines peer groups by industry affiliation and conducts robustness tests using ESG risk clustering to address classification bias. This study contributes to the literature by strengthening causal inference and refining the understanding of peer-driven ESG behavior by integrating institutional theory, signaling theory, and information economics. The findings offer practical implications for policymakers, investors, and corporate managers seeking to promote ESG convergence through peer-driven incentives in diverse regulatory contexts.

As ESG practices become increasingly embedded in global capital markets, their impact on firm financing costs remains an open question in emerging economies, where regulatory divergence and rating inconsistency complicate investor perceptions, particularly in China’s rapidly evolving financial environment. This study examines the impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance on financing costs among Chinese non-financial listed firms, with a focus on the moderating roles of financial regulation and ESG rating divergence. Using a panel dataset of 4493 firms across 33,773 firm–year observations from 2011 to 2022, we employ a two-way fixed effects model, along with Propensity Score Matching and Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) techniques, to address endogeneity concerns and enhance causal inference. The findings reveal that improvements in ESG performance significantly reduce financing costs, substantially affecting debt relative to equity. Moreover, the cost-saving benefits of ESG are amplified in industries with stronger regulatory oversight, while high ESG rating divergence undermines these benefits by increasing uncertainty. These results highlight the importance of standardizing ESG rating systems and enhancing regulatory consistency. Such efforts can lower capital costs and improve financial access for firms, particularly in capital-intensive and environmentally sensitive sectors, offering actionable guidance for policymakers shaping disclosure frameworks and corporate managers optimizing ESG investment strategies.

As global concerns over climate change intensify, carbon information disclosure has emerged as a critical factor influencing firm value. However, the relationship between carbon information disclosure and firm value remains inconclusive in the existing literature, particularly within the context of China’s evolving environmental policies. This study investigates the impact of carbon information disclosure on firm value while examining the moderating role of green innovation and the moderating moderated effect of environmental regulation. Drawing on stakeholder theory, resource-based theory, and institutional theory, this study constructs a comprehensive research framework and employs panel data regression analysis on a sample of 1753 firm ten-year observations from A-share listed companies in China between 2013 and 2022. The results reveal that carbon information disclosure significantly enhances firm value, and green innovation positively moderates this relationship. Furthermore, environmental regulation strengthens the moderating effect of green innovation, acting as a leverage effect that amplifies the financial benefits of carbon information disclosure. These findings highlight the importance of integrating regulatory policies with corporate sustainability strategies. This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the synergistic effects of carbon information disclosure, green innovation, and environmental regulation, offering insights for sustainable corporate development.

This study examines the causal and dynamic effects of carbon information disclosure on firm value, using a policy-driven setting in China’s carbon-intensive industries. In 2018, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment implemented a regulatory policy requiring internal carbon accounting and third-party verification for carbon-intensive enterprises, without mandating public disclosure. This exogenous policy shock offers a quasi-natural experiment to investigate how firms in carbon-intensive industries respond to environmental mandates through voluntary disclosure and how such disclosure affects their market valuation. Employing a difference-in-differences framework combined with two-stage least squares estimation, we identify a significant increase in carbon information disclosure following the policy intervention. This disclosure leads to a positive and growing effect on firm value, particularly when sustained over multiple years. Moreover, the valuation effect is moderated by regional environmental regulation: firms in areas with lower enforcement intensity benefit more from disclosure, as the signal is perceived to be more voluntary and credible. These findings provide robust causal evidence on the role of carbon information disclosure in shaping market outcomes under regulatory pressure. The study contributes to the literature on environmental regulation and corporate financial behavior in emerging markets.

This study investigates how firms in emerging markets respond to climate policy risk, with a particular focus on the dynamic role of green innovation in shaping carbon information disclosure. Using a difference-in-differences (DID) framework, we examine the impact of China’s 2018 carbon reporting policy, which represents an institutionally significant but non-mandatory regulatory intervention, on the disclosure behaviors of A-share listed firms from 2013 to 2022. The results show that the policy significantly increased firms’ attention to carbon information disclosure, especially among those with limited green innovation capacity. In contrast, firms with stronger innovation capabilities exhibited more stable disclosure practices, suggesting a buffering effect against regulatory uncertainty. Further analysis reveals that the moderating effect of green innovation changes over time, as innovation-oriented firms gradually adjust their disclosure strategies in response to evolving policy expectations. These findings highlight green innovation as a key internal resource that enables firms to strategically adapt to climate policy risks. This study contributes to the literature on climate risk management and corporate sustainability by providing empirical evidence on how dynamic capabilities shape disclosure outcomes and risk management strategies under changing regulatory conditions.

Objective: This study aims to explore and enhance the tourism-forestry risk management in research and industry practice. By integrating the concept of resilience and sustainability into risk management practices, this research addresses the multifaceted challenges faced by the forest-tourism field and promotes its long-term viability. Methods: The study comprised of three stages. Firstly, it employs the scoping review technique in the Scopus database system to seek for research gaps related to the objective of the study. Secondly, the study continues with conceptual analysis from Malaysian context particularly on the industrial avenue to assess the current state of risk management practices. Final stage is to propose a tourism-forestry risk management framework for the tourism industry in Malaysia. This study evaluates the effectiveness of existing risk management strategies and identifies gaps and opportunities for improvement by analysing publicly available data from researchers, various stakeholders such as government agencies, industry professionals, and local communities. Results: The findings contribute to the development of Risk Management Tourism-Forestry Framework (RTFF) for enhancing resilience and sustainability in tourism-forestry systems not limited to Malaysia but also for other nations. Moreover, the research outcomes provide valuable insights for the researchers on the knowledge gaps that should be filled. Furthermore, this study provides great lessons learned for all countries with similar socio-economic and environmental contexts towards the application of a risk management framework in their region. Finally, the proposed SDG-oriented risk management framework of RTFF offers a holistic and integrated approach, taking into account social, economic, and environmental dimensions, and provides a roadmap for fostering resilience and sustainability in the face of evolving challenges. Conclusion: This study aims to improve the literature reviews on resilience and sustainability in tourism-forestry that are related to risk management issues. The manuscript addresses the multifaceted challenges faced by the tourism-forestry field and promotes its long-term viability by incorporating the concept of sustainable development goals into risk management practises. Elements of tourism-forestry in the state of the art in the literature as well as in practice not to mention the development of the framework, in which no other study has adopted the same methodology, thus proving the novelty of the study.