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Government procurement, climate change perceptions, and corporate green technology innovation in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2025

Xiaoyi Li Open the ORCID record for Xiaoyi Li [Opens in a new window]
Xiaoyi Li*
Affiliation:
China Center for Special Economic Zone Research, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
*
Email: 2250401007@email.szu.edu.cn
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Abstract

Government procurement is a highly important area to explore in seeking to advance the capacity of enterprises to achieve green technological innovation and promote green development more broadly. Research for this article focused on A-share listed manufacturing enterprises in Shanghai and Shenzhen as samples, and used the government procurement contract data published by the China Government Procurement Network to explore the effect on technological innovation in the manufacturing industry. The results show that government procurement has a significant and positive effect on green technology innovation. Moreover, the larger the scale of government procurement, the more obvious is the promotion effect on green innovation. A mechanism test found that government procurement can promote corporate green technology innovation by raising awareness of climate change (especially in the eastern regions of China), while a heterogeneity analysis found that government procurement promotes green invention patents more significantly than green utility model patents. Government procurement was also found to have a greater effect on enterprises without ISO14001 certification. Further analysis revealed that overall demand-side innovation procurement and supply-side innovation subsidies have a mutually reinforcing synergistic effect on firm innovation. While government synergies vary significantly depending on the policy implementation sequence, this article provides an important reference in identifying further ways to improve government procurement policies.

Keywords

climate change perceptionsgovernment procurementgreen technology innovationmanufacturing industryChinaQ58H57L60O31

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Type
Original Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , First View , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The University of New South Wales

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