Corporate Environmental Innovation and Environmental Decoupling: International Evidence
研究了环境创新能否减少企业环境信息披露与实际环境绩效之间的脱钩现象，发现环境创新能显著降低这种脱钩，对提升可持续发展报告的可信度有启示。
ABSTRACT This study investigates whether environmental innovation reduces environmental decoupling, defined as the mismatch between a company's environmental disclosures and its actual environmental performance. Drawing on legitimacy theory, we argue that environmental innovation represents a substantive organizational response that reduces companies' reliance on symbolic environmental communication and promotes alignment between reported claims and actual practices. Using a sample of 10,463 firm‐year observations of companies listed in the Bloomberg Global Large and Mid‐Cap Index from 2010 to 2020, we find that environmental innovation is negatively and statistically associated with environmental decoupling. This result remains robust across multiple model specifications, including two‐stage least squares and propensity score matching approaches. The study offers generalizable insights into the role of environmental innovation in enhancing the credibility of sustainability reporting and provides practical implications for managers, investors, and policymakers seeking to mitigate environmental misinformation and improve the integrity of disclosure.