Determinants and reduction pathways of industrial carbon emission intensity from a technology–organization–environment perspective: evidence from China

ABSTRACT As one of the world’s largest carbon emitters, China’s industrial sector plays a dominant role in the national emissions structure, making effective carbon reduction by industrial enterprises a critical task for addressing climate change. To systematically investigate the determinants of carbon emission reduction in industrial enterprises and their potential optimization pathways, this study adopts the Technology – Organization – Environment (TOE) framework and examines Chinese industrial firms using panel data from A-share listed companies over the period 2012–2023. A two-way fixed effects model, the GM(1,1) grey forecasting model are jointly employed for empirical analysis. The results indicate that: (1) within the TOE framework, green technological innovation, executives’ green cognition, media attention, government environmental subsidies, and industry competition significantly reduce carbon emission intensity; (2) heterogeneity analyses reveal substantial variations in these effects across regions, ownership structures, and firm life-cycle stages. Specifically, the mitigating effects of executives’ green cognition and media attention are more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, whereas government environmental subsidies and competitive mechanisms exhibit stronger emission-reduction effects in state-owned enterprises; (3) forecasts for the period 2024–2035 suggest that the overall carbon reduction performance of China’s industrial enterprises will continue to improve, although marked regional and sectoral disparities persist; and (4) carbon reduction potential analysis shows a highly uneven distribution of mitigation potential across regions and industries, with the eastern region and the manufacturing sector concentrating the largest reduction opportunities. The findings provide robust empirical evidence and theoretical support for the formulation of differentiated and targeted industrial carbon mitigation policies.