With China??s emphasis on sustainable development, the central government has continuously introduced innovative environmental protection policies in an effort to address the currentenvironmental governance dilemma of local governments. This paper takes the central environmental protection inspection policy, which is very characteristic of China??s environmental governance,as a quasi-natural experiment. Based on the data of listed firms in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2012 to 2018, we analyze the impact of central environmental protection supervision on the environmental, social, a multi-period difference-in-differences model is used to analyze the impact of vertical environmental regulation on corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance. It is found that the central environmental protection inspection policy significantly improves corporate ESG performance, with government environmental governance and corporate green technology innovation as potential channels, and media attention and analyst attention can increase the positive impact of the policy on corporate ESG performance. In addition, the positive effect of central environmental protection supervision on corporate ESG performance is more pronounced in firms that are prone to “government-business collusion”, have lower financing constraints,and the latter four batches of inspection. This paper not only enriches the research on the micro impact of vertical environmental regulation on enterprises, but also expands the research on the factors influencing corporate ESG performance, which is is of great significance in exploring the driving force behind the corporate ESG performance and promoting sustainable development.

随着中国对可持续发展的重视,中央政府不断推出创新环境保护政策,以期解决当前地方政府面临的环境治理困境。本文以极具中国环境治理特色的中央环保督察政策为准自然实验,基于2012-2018年沪深上市企业数据,采用多期双重差分模型分析垂直型环境监管对企业环境、社会和治理(ESG)表现的影响。研究发现,中央环保督察政策显著提升了企业ESG表现,政府环境治理和企业绿色技术创新为其中的作用路径,媒体关注度和分析师关注度可以提高中央环保督察政策对企业ESG表现的正向影响。此外,中央环保督察对企业ESG表现的促进作用在更容易进行“政企合谋”、融资约束较低和督察后四个批次的企业中更明显。本文不仅丰富了垂直型环境监管对企业微观影响的研究,也拓展了企业ESG表现影响因素的研究,对于探索企业ESG表现背后的驱动力,推进可持续发展具有重要意义。