SMEs in the food manufacturing sector represent a considerable proportion of mainstream businesses in Malaysia. The changes in the lifestyles of Malaysians have led to increased demand for convenience and processed foods, which has led to a growing number of food manufacturing establishments in Malaysia. Nevertheless, the expansion in the food manufacturing sector is followed by a rise in environmental issues. Therefore, to mitigate the impact of food manufacturing activities on the environment, one of the best possible solutions is to implement environmental management practices (EMPs). SMEs may encounter varying levels of pressure from customers, regulatory bodies, and the social community regarding environmental behavior and compliance. This study used the Stakeholder theory to develop the research model. The first objective of this study is to determine the effect of SMEs’ external stakeholders, including customer pressure, regulatory pressure, and social community pressure, on food manufacturing SMEs’ intention to adopt EMPs. The second objective is to test the effect of firm size as a moderating variable. A structured questionnaire was administered to 367 food manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia. The findings reveal that the SMEs’ intention to adopt EMPs was significantly related to customer, regulatory, and social community pressures. The study also discovered that firm size only moderated the relationship between customer pressure and the intention to adopt EMPs. The results provided a more robust understanding of the effect of external factors on SMEs’ intentions toward EMPs. Policymakers are recommended to carefully consider those factors to encourage more SMEs to adopt EMPs. SMEs should cultivate a learning and innovative culture to successfully embrace EMPs in a changing business environment.

How does corporate strategic orientation relate to ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance in China’s evolving green-policy environment? Using 12,998 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed firms (2010–2023) with Bloomberg ESG scores, we compare profit- and growth-oriented firms in firm- and year-fixed-effects specifications that support associational rather than causal interpretation. Profit-oriented firms show higher ESG performance and growth-oriented firms lower; these associations are robust to continuous measures, four-quadrant classifications, threshold variation, expanded controls, and alternative fixed-effect structures. A financial-distress channel appears under an Ohlson-type measure (mediated shares of 3.9% versus 1.2%, a 3.25-fold difference that is itself statistically significant) but does not generalize to an Altman Z-score or temporally ordered specifications; we therefore present it as one possible, measure-dependent channel rather than as a transmission hub (a causal-mediation reading would require the sequential-ignorability assumptions that our design does not deliver). Among boundary conditions, moderators show only exploratory asymmetries concentrated in firm size that do not survive multiple-testing correction, whereas financing-constraint nulls are certified by equivalence testing. The growth-oriented ESG discount deepens after the 2020 dual-carbon announcement. We discuss implications for calibrated, firm-type-differentiated ESG policy.