Corporate environmental investment and supply chain financing: The moderating role of environmental innovation

Using microdata from listed Chinese firms for 2009-2019, we examined whether and how corporate environmental investments affect supply chain financing. We further investigated the moderating effect of two types of environmental innovation (i.e., voluntary versus compliance environmental innovations). The findings revealed that firms with high levels of environmental investments were more inclined to obtain supply chain financing. This evidence suggests the positive effects of supply chain stakeholders in promoting corporate environmental governance. Moreover, the association could be more or less pronounced for firms with high levels of compliance or voluntary environmental innovation, respectively. Furthermore, channel tests indicated that social responsibility and transaction trust were the primary channels for explaining the above relationships. Finally, the positive relationship between environmental investment and supply chain financing only held for firms located in different cities from the supply chain firms and firms with high social attention. These findings highlight the heterogeneous role of environmental innovation and public governance in alleviating firms' financing constraints.