Environmental Regulation, Information Disclosure, and Clean Production in Heavy-Polluting Enterprises: Evidence from China

The key to achieving sustainable economic development and mitigating climate change lies in effective green transition governance. This study, based on evolutionary game theory, constructs a game model involving three subjects: heavily polluting enterprises, the government, and environmental information disclosure regulatory authorities, aiming to analyze the clean production decision-making mechanism under multi-subject interaction. It empirically examines the relationship among the three by combining panel data of listed companies in heavily polluting industries on China’s A-share market. The research findings indicate the following: (1) Excessively high environmental technology upgrade and information disclosure costs will hinder enterprises’ clean production. (2) The intensity of regulation is influenced by the government’s benefits and costs. (3) Effective environmental policies require multi-dimensional coordination. (4) Environmental regulations can effectively enhance enterprises’ environmental performance, and by improving the transparency and quality of environmental information disclosure, significantly improve their environmental performance.