Effect of Investment in Environmental Protection on Green Development of Industrial Enterprises: Evidence from Central China

Abstract

China's industrialization and urbanization process is advancing rapidly. While using natural resources, the country also generates a large amount of waste, causing serious environmental pollution and affecting further development of human society. Expanding the scale of investment in environmental protection has gradually become an effective means to address the problem. China is continuously increasing investment in environmental protection, actively improving environmental conditions, and achieving the dual goals of promoting high-quality development and environmental protection. Six provinces in central China were taken as research objects and the regional differences in their investments in environmental protection were analyzed. A panel entropy weight model was used to calculate the green development level of industrial enterprises, and a panel regression model was employed to calculate the impact of investment in environmental protection on the degree of influence of the green development of industrial enterprises. Results show that the six provinces in central China have significant differences in their investment in industrial environmental pollution control. The unreasonable allocation of environmental protection investment funds has led to the insignificant improvement of environmental pollution caused by industrial enterprises in the six central provinces of investment in environmental protection. R&D expenditure of industrial enterprises, the total import, and export volume of foreigninvested enterprises, and the fixed asset investment of the entire society have a positive role in promoting the green development of industrial enterprises. The added value of the secondary industry has a significant negative effect on the green development of industrial enterprises. Conclusions can be used as a reference for encouraging industrial enterprises to increase investment in environmental protection and promote green development.