Green Accounting Practices and Financial Performance in the Saudi Energy Sector: Do Government Regulations Matter?

ABSTRACT Environmental sustainability is increasingly important for corporate resilience in carbon‐intensive industries. This study examines the relationship between green accounting practices and financial performance in the Saudi energy sector and assesses the moderating role of government regulation. Using panel data from listed energy and energy‐related firms from 2015 to 2024, the study applies Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares and an error‐correction framework to analyse long‐run and short‐run dynamics. The findings show that green accounting practices are more strongly associated with market‐based valuation than with accounting profitability, indicating that investors respond more quickly to sustainability disclosures than to internal financial outcomes. In the short run, government regulation weakens the market‐signalling effect of green accounting, whereas in the long run, it strengthens its relationship with accounting profitability. Overall, the results suggest that regulation initially standardises disclosure but gradually supports the translation of environmental transparency into operational performance.