Impact of Green Mergers and Acquisitions on the Performance of Heavy Pollution Industry Enterprises from the Perspective of ESG Management

In recent years, China has made sustained efforts toward green development, actively promoting the process through carefully formulated policies and guidelines. Against this macro backdrop, enterprises in China, especially those that are resource-intensive and energy-intensive, have come to realize the importance of green mergers and acquisitions (M&As) more deeply. Green M&A refers to a strategic initiative undertaken by enterprises to acquire key elements of green production through mergers and acquisitions of other enterprises. This approach not only enables enterprises to acquire green technologies and resources but also effectively promotes the environmental protection process across the entire industry. This strategic move not only contributes to the sustainable development of the enterprise itself but also has a positive impact on the construction of an ecological civilization throughout society. This paper reviews the domestic and international research literature on green mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and their impact on firm performance. Using 2012-2020 corporate M&A data as a research sample, the results show that green M&A, as a strategy, can significantly promote the economic performance, and environmental performance of heavily polluting enterprises to increase significantly, media monitoring can strengthen the impact of green M&A on corporate performance, in the context of green and low-carbon development, green M&A can improve the ESG performance of enterprises by improving the performance of the enterprise to In the context of green and low-carbon development, green M&A can improve the performance of enterprises by improving their ESG performance, green M&A can promote green innovation of enterprises and thus improve their performance, and green M&A has a greater impact on the performance of enterprises in non-state-owned enterprises than in state-owned enterprises.