Green Bonds, Corporate Performance, and Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

Green bonds are a financial tool that has been vigorously promoted in the global green finance field in recent years. Since 2013, the global issuance of green bonds has seen explosive growth. China's green bond market has made great progress, rising to the top tier of global rankings. In this paper, Chinese listed companies that issue green bonds are used as the research object to explore the impact of green bond issuance on companies, including the impact of the announcement of green bond issuance on companies’ stock prices, as well as the impact of green bond issuance on companies’ financial performance and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The empirical results indicate that announcements of green bonds issuance have a positive impact not only on companies’ stock prices, companies' profitability, and operational performance, but also on innovation capacity, and can improve companies' CSR. Overall, the issuance of green bonds has a positive impact on companies, can contribute to environmental improvement, promotes CSR and value creation, and helps to attract investors to some extent.