Environmental labeling certification and firm environmental and financial performance: A resource management perspective

Environmental labeling certification (ELC) is a new type of voluntary environmental regulation for firm environmental governance. This study examines the impacts of ELC on firm environmental performance (EP) and financial performance (FP) from the resource management perspective. Based on a sample of 1325 Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2016 with 9972 firm-year observations, it is found that ELC improves firm EP, but has a limited impact on firm FP. Specifically, ELC is found to have a significant impact on firm annual operating income (AOI) and Tobin's q, but has no impact on return on assets (ROA). Therefore, ELC has not yet promoted firms to achieve a win-win situation between EP and FP. Further analysis reveals that ELC can trigger environmental innovation offsets, but the effect of environmental innovation offsets is weak at present. Moreover, the impact of ELC on firm FP reflects the heterogeneity of the ownership structure. This study not only contributes to the existing literature, but also makes extensive practical contributions.