Mixed ownership reform has contributed greatly to China’s economic development; however, there is little literature on how mixed ownership reform affects carbon performance in the context of environmentally sustainable development. Therefore, this paper takes A-share industrial state-owned enterprises in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2008 to 2020 as research samples to investigate the impact of mixed ownership reform on carbon performance through empirical tests. The results show that the mixed ownership reform of state-owned enterprises can improve the carbon performance of enterprises. The intermediary test shows that green innovation plays an intermediary role in the relationship between mixed ownership reform and carbon performance. Furthermore, compared with green management innovation, mixed ownership reform has a stronger promoting effect on green technology innovation, and green technology innovation has a greater impact on carbon performance. Heterogeneity analysis shows that in heavily polluted industries and competitive industries, mixed ownership reform of state-owned enterprises has a more significant role in improving carbon performance. Therefore, the mixed ownership reform of state-owned enterprises is of great significance for promoting environmental sustainable development. Overall, this study provides empirical evidence for the environmental sustainable development of state-owned enterprises in emerging markets.

China’s listed companies have serious Principal-agent problem of the second kind. Large shareholders have violated the rights and interests of minority shareholders in an endless stream of cases. However, the voice of encouraging minority shareholders to actively participate in enterprise decision-making is growing day-by-day. However, there is no consensus on whether the enthusiasm of minority shareholders in decision-making can have a positive impact on enterprises. Therefore, this article takes China’s A-share listed companies from 2016 to 2020 as the research sample, and from the perspective of green innovation, discusses whether the minority shareholders’ active participation in enterprise decision-making can improve the level of green innovation of enterprises. The study found that the minority shareholders’ active participation in enterprise decision-making can improve the level of green innovation. Moreover, the minority shareholders’ “hand voting” improves the green innovation level of enterprises by influencing the media attention; A higher level of legal environment is conducive to strengthening the role of minority shareholders’ participation in the shareholders’ meeting in green innovation. Based on the property right nature, regional and industrial level, further research found that the minority share-holders’ role in improving green innovation capacity is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises, eastern regions and heavy pollution industries. The research results show that minority shareholders, as an important force to monitor the senior executives’ behavior and enhance corporate value, actively participate in corporate decision-making, can not only improve corporate governance, but also benefit the sustainable development of enterprises.

At present, China has entered into an aging society, and the social risk brought by the aging population has become a major problem facing the country and society. Along with the weakening of the traditional-type family elderly function, the expansion of the state’s elderly responsibility has become an inevitable trend for the transformation of elderly responsibility. However, in the existing norms on old-age security, there are still problems of unbalanced distribution of responsibilities and blurred boundaries of government responsibilities.By analyzing the unreasonable aspects of the existing old-age security system, we summarize the proper contents of the state’s old-age responsibility, reasonably coordinate the state’s and individual’s old-age responsibility by applying the “subsidiarity principle”, and clarify the government’s position in the old-age responsibility, so as to construct a perfect old-age security system.