Improving the green technology innovation capability of enterprises is an important way for industrial enterprises to improve product quality and production efficiency and reduce industrial pollution and energy consumption. Based on the Porter hypothesis, this paper took the data of listed companies of the heavy polluting industry in Chinese A-shares from 2011-2018 as a study sample, and a difference-in-differences (DID) model was constructed to explore the impact of environmental management system certification (EMSC) on enterprises' green innovation. This paper also studied the differential impact between the EMSC and enterprises' green innovation from the perspective of enterprise heterogeneity. It was found that the EMSC has a significant promotion effect on the enterprises' green innovation; this promotion changes with the size and ownership of the enterprise and the lifecycle of the enterprise. Meanwhile, customer, shareholder, and creditor satisfaction all play a positive moderating role in the process of EMSC affecting green innovation, while the moderating role of supplier satisfaction is not significant. The findings of this paper have important implications for the understanding of the role of EMSC in promoting green innovation in enterprises.
Keywords: difference-in-differences; enterprise heterogeneity; environmental management system certification; green innovation.