Digital technology and synergistic emissions reduction: CEOs’ green experience

Attaining simultaneous reductions in pollution and carbon emissions is essential for addressing global environmental challenges in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. While digital technology is often cited as a key driver, its firm-level impact on this dual objective remains empirically underexplored. This study fills this gap by examining how digitalization enables firms to simultaneously reduce pollution and carbon emissions. Integrating the natural resource-based view and upper echelons theory, this study employs a staggered difference-in-differences methodology using panel data from 2962 Chinese A-share listed companies in the period of 2010–2022. Our findings show that digital technology significantly promotes synergistic emissions reduction. Specifically, a one-unit increase in digitalization corresponds to a 1.22 % reduction in pollution and a 3.90 % reduction in carbon emissions. This positive effect is amplified in firms led by CEOs with prior environmental experience. These results provide valuable insights into how digital technology contributes to the advancement of sustainability initiatives. They also highlight its potential to drive progress in corporate environmental management and encourage its broader adoption for sustainable development.