Digital transformation and carbon performance: evidence from firm-level data

High Energy Consumption or Dirty Energy Using? The Driving Factors Behind Carbon Emission in National Supercomputing Centers

“…The former, contrary to Berkhout and Hertin, describes direct effect as the positive impacts robots directly bring to the environment, while portraying indirect effect as the negative consequences they generate [28]. The latter, similar to Berkhout and Hertin, characterizes direct effect as the increased electricity consumption due to digital transformation, while including a series of positive impacts as part of the indirect effect, including productivity enhancement, easing of enterprise financing constraints, and energy conservation [4].…”

“…In some cities, NSCs do not significantly exacerbate local CO 2 emissions. Existing research has explored various dimensions, including enterprises [4], cities [3,10,11,13], regions [6,9,19], etc., providing positive impacts of digitization on environmental sustainability from multiple perspectives including digital economy [3,6,9,19,27], specific digital technologies (e.g., the internet, big data, artificial intelligence) [12,15,14,28], and digital infrastructure [10,11,13,[20][21][22][23][24]. Consistent with the research results of Rao et al, Tang and Yang, and Wu et al [11,13,20], we find that China's National Supercomputing Centers have significant carbon emission effects.…”

“…Existing research reveals the multifaceted impact of digital infrastructure on the environment. Proponents highlight its role in boosting production and energy efficiency [3][4][5][6][7], thus reducing carbon emissions through decreased per-unit energy consumption (known as the "substitution effect") [8]. Furthermore, new digital infrastructure fosters innovation and accelerates industrial upgrades [3,6,9].…”

“…The by doing so, this study seeks to identify feasible measures for the green transformation of NSCs. Regarding the assessment about the environmental effect of digitization, existing research covers specific technological [8,12,14,18], as well as the implementation of national-level digital infrastructure policies [3,4,10,11,13,[21][22][23][24]. Some studies have conducted comprehensive evaluations about the environmental effect of digitization using digital economy indices [6,9,16,19].…”

The impact of digital transformation on firms’ value: examining the role of ESG performance and the effect of information interaction

“…As digital transformation significantly enhances operational efficiency and productivity, with more pronounced effects in sectors like manufacturing, properties, and utilities (Chen et al, 2022a, b), there might be heterogeneity in the impact of digital transformation on firm value. Additionally, high-carbon-emitting firms, in comparison to those with low carbon intensity, are more likely to be overseen and regulated by the government within the context of decarbonization policies (He and Chen, 2023). Consequently, they have stronger incentives to reduce carbon emissions through digital transformation, potentially leading to excess stock returns (Wen et al, 2020).…”