With the increasing global concern for the ecological environment and sustainable development, all countries have proposed environmental regulatory policies to improve the quality of their ecological environments. China has also proposed an environmental regulation policy: Leading an officials’ accountability audit of natural resources (AANR). As the main subject of consuming resources, the sustainability of enterprises has become a focus of all parties. The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metric measures corporate sustainability. As a result, companies’ ESG performance has gained the community’s attention. Based on data from Chinese A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2019, this study investigates the role of AANR on the ESG performance of companies via the difference-in-differences (DID) method. This study found that implementing the AANR pilot significantly negatively impacted corporate ESG performance. This result was found to remain robust after passing parallel trend and robustness tests. Further research found that the AANR differed significantly across corporate ownership and regions in corporate ESG performance. First, pilot implementation had a more significant impact on the ESG performance of non-state enterprises. Second, the differences across regions showed that the central region had the most significant impact, followed by the western region, while the eastern region had the most negligible impact. This study will help government departments improve the AANR system and enable companies to focus on their ESG performance.

Eliminating hunger and ensuring food security is one of the specific goals of sustainable development of the United Nations in 2030, and food production is of great significance to food availability. Based on this, this paper investigates the impact of digital inclusive finance on food security by constructing a fixed effects model using panel data for 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020. The results found that: (1) Digital inclusive finance significantly and positively affects food security, and the results remain robust after robustness tests and endogeneity tests. (2) The scale of farmland operations plays a positive mediating role in the effect of digital inclusive finance on food security, and the level of agricultural machinery positively moderates the effect of digital inclusive finance on food security. (3) Heterogeneity tests show that there is a positive effect of digital inclusive finance on food security in eastern China, and a non-significant effect of digital inclusive finance on food security in central and western regions;. There is a significant positive effect of digital inclusive finance on food security in China’s main grain marketing areas and balanced production and marketing areas, and a non-significant effect of digital inclusive finance on food security in the main grain producing areas.

In the context of financial support for rural revitalization, digital financial inclusion may become a new “gospel” to alleviate agricultural surface source pollution. Based on the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020, the study constructs a fixed-effects model to test the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion on agricultural non-point source pollution empirically. The study finds that: 1) Digital financial inclusion has a mitigating effect on agricultural non-point source pollution, and the abatement effect still exists after the robustness tests such as replacing the explanatory variables, reducing the sample size, and endogeneity treatment. 2) The moderating effect test shows that the income structure of farmers strengthens the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion on agricultural non-point source pollution, i.e., the more the income structure of farmers tends to be “non-farmed”, the stronger the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion. 3) The heterogeneity test found that all three dimensions of digital financial inclusion, including the breadth of coverage, depth of use, and degree of digitization, can mitigate agricultural non-point source pollution, but there are differences in the intensity of the effect. Compared with the northwestern part of the “hu huan yong” line, the mitigation effect of digital inclusive finance is more significant in the southeastern part of the “hu huan yong” line. 4) The threshold effect test shows that the mitigation effect of digital financial inclusion on agricultural non-point source pollution has non-linear characteristics, and there is a double threshold effect of digital financial inclusion, and the mitigation effect will be enhanced as the development level of digital financial inclusion increases.

The task of reducing carbon emission intensity is difficult for manufacturing firms in China under the national goal of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”. Numerous studies have confirmed the inhibitory impact of ESG performance on carbon emission intensity; nevertheless, the significance of ESG rating divergence as a derivative of ESG ratings has been neglected. Therefore, this study selects Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms from 2011–2022 as a research sample and empirically examines the impact of ESG rating divergence on the carbon emission intensity of Chinese manufacturing firms via a higher-order fixed effects model. The study revealed that (1) ESG rating divergence creates disincentives for manufacturing firms to increase carbon emission intensity; (2) ESG rating divergence leads to an increase in corporate carbon emissions by inhibiting incentives for green innovation; and (3) mitigating financial constraints and enhancing digital transformation in enterprises diminishes the impact of ESG rating divergence on the carbon emissions of manufacturing firms. Furthermore, enterprise digital transformation can exert a moderating influence on both the initial and subsequent stages of the “ESG performance → green innovation → carbon emission intensity” pathway, predominantly in the initial phase. (4) The impact of ESG rating divergence on carbon emission intensity varies depending on the ownership, industry, geography, and level of competitiveness of manufacturing enterprises. The findings not only provide empirical evidence on the feasibility of expanding the standardization of ESG ratings within China’s regulatory framework but also provide useful inspiration for Chinese firms to reduce their carbon emission intensity and achieve sustainable development.

Customer engagement is a new value index affecting the omnichannel benefits of enterprises. It is beginning to attract the attention of both scholars and managers. However, there is still a lack of research on the mechanism influencing customer engagement in the fresh food omnichannel retail context. Drawing from the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework, this paper builds a relationship model between omnichannel integration and fresh food customer engagement. In addition, the paper empirically analyzes the mechanism of omnichannel integration’s impact on fresh food customer engagement. The findings show that omnichannel integration promotes flow experiences through three modes: information integration, business integration, and service and distribution integration. Flow experience is mediating the relationship between omnichannel integration and customer engagement. Strengthening the customer engagement knowledge system can help fresh food omnichannel retailers to create and manage the long-term cooperative relationship between customers and the company’s value creation. The higher the degree of omnichannel integration of fresh food retail firms, the more conducive it is to enhancing the customer flow experience, which will positively impact customers’ attitudinal and behavioral engagement.