Yukuo Zhang

As freshwater scarcity becomes increasingly severe under climate change, physical water risk has emerged as a critical financial concern for firms in water-intensive industries. This study explores whether and how physical water risk influences firms’ cost of equity, and whether corporate social responsibility (CSR)—both its overall level and structural differentiation—modulates this relationship. Using panel data from 849 Chinese listed companies in water-intensive sectors between 2011 and 2022, we find that physical water risk significantly elevates equity capital costs. While a strong CSR performance buffers this effect, CSR differentiation—reflected in uneven CSR engagement across different domains—undermines or even reverses this moderating role. Additional heterogeneity analyses show that these patterns are more pronounced in large and non-state-owned enterprises. These findings deepen our understanding of how environmental risks are priced in capital markets and offer strategic insights for firms seeking to manage sustainability-related financial exposures.

With the increasing awareness of sustainable development and the construction of a water-saving society, many Chinese enterprises, especially those with high water-consuming corporations, have begun to pay attention to water-saving management. This study employs a scenario experiment method, focusing on high water-consuming corporations, to examine the differentiated responses of consumers to both symbolic and substantive corporate water-saving behaviors. The results show that substantive water-saving behaviors significantly enhance positive consumer attitudes and purchase intentions compared to symbolic behaviors. Consumer–company identification mediates the impact of water-saving behaviors on consumer responses. Corporate abilities and water resource conditions in consumer’s location moderate this relationship. These findings underscore the market value of corporate water-saving behaviors and provide guidance for companies in developing effective water-saving practices and marketing strategies.

Along with the deep comprehension and accumulated practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR), people are increasingly aware of the positive role of the government in the development of CSR. Chinese governments at all levels have issued many policies to guide and regulate CSR behavior in Chinese enterprises. However, there has been little research on the evaluation of CSR policy’s effectiveness. In this paper, we conducted a text analysis of 76 corporate social responsibility policies (CSRPs) and statistics of high-frequency words. Based on the existing policy evaluation index system, combined with the characteristics of CSRPs, we constructed a CSRPs content evaluation index system based on the policy modeling consistency index (PMC-index) model. Additionally, we conducted content analysis and quantitative evaluation of six CSRPs selected from different levels and regions of government agencies. The results show that the evaluation levels of the six policies were all good, which could play a positive role in the CSR development of their policy objectives. However, policies in different regions show obvious differences in the design of implementation suggestions and incentive and constraint measures, and there is a large space for further optimization. This study not only provides specific policy optimization suggestions for the government and enterprises based on case studies but also provides methods for evaluating the content of CSRPs, filling the research gap in this field.

Water resources are important factors limiting social and economic development, so how to ensure the coordination between economic development and water resources–ecological management capacity has become a key issue that needs to be addressed urgently for China’s high-quality economic development. This paper used nighttime light data as proxy variables of economic development to calculate the coupling coordination degree between provincial economic development and water resources–ecological management capacity in China from 2004 to 2019 based on the coupling coordination degree model; w constructed a spatial econometric model to explore the spatial correlation and influencing factors between economic development and water resources–ecological management capacity. The results are shown in the following: (1) The overall level of China’s economic development is on an upward trend, but the regional development is unbalanced, showing a decreasing spatial pattern distribution of the eastern coastal region–mid-western region–far-western region. (2) The level of water resources–ecological management capacity is low, and the spatial distribution shows a decreasing trend in the far west–central and western–eastern coastal regions. (3) The level of coupling and coordination between economic development and water resources–ecological management capacity rises from a mild imbalance level to a little imbalance level, and the spatial distribution is consistent with the spatial distribution of economic development. (4) The factors influencing the level of coupling and coordination of inter-provincial economic development and water resources–ecological management capacity in China mainly involve the population scale, technological progress, affluence, and foreign direct investment. Each province and city should take into account its own actual situation and develop targeted measures to promote the coordinated development of economic development and the water resources–ecological management capacity.

This paper uses the differential game approach to construct a model of cooperative emission reduction involving the government, manufacturing firms, and retail firms under different power structures. It is found that the dominant player receives more subsidies; the development of a mechanism for horizontal technology R&D among enterprises can reduce the financial pressure on the government to implement compensation strategies and improve the effectiveness and performance of supply chain emission reduction; and the government can develop differentiated subsidy schemes to achieve Pareto optimality in the supply chain and environmental performance based on different game strategies and revenue-sharing agreements by enterprises.