Do customer climate risk perceptions promote green innovation along the supply chain?

TY - JOUR

T1 - Do customer climate risk perceptions promote green innovation along the supply chain?

AU - Zhang, Zi Qi

AU - Chen, Sixia

AU - Tang, Bao Jun

AU - Zhang, Yongji

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2026 Elsevier Ltd.

PY - 2026/3/1

Y1 - 2026/3/1

N2 - Climate risk perceptions are increasingly influencing corporate behavior, yet their impact on green innovation along the supply chain remains insufficiently understood. We combine customer–supplier links among Chinese listed firms with a BERT-based measure of customer firms' climate-risk perceptions constructed from annual reports. We find that higher customer climate risk perceptions are associated with subsequent increases in supplier green innovation. Mechanism evidence indicates that the effect operates through customers’ market power, technology spillovers, and financial support. The effect is stronger when suppliers have greater digital capability and environmental expertise, and when customers exhibit stronger ESG performance and higher information transparency. Dynamic analyses reveal that short-run responses attenuate over time, whereas persistent signaling sustains innovation momentum. Overall, the results suggest that customer climate-risk perceptions strengthen market-based supply-chain governance and bias technical change toward greener trajectories.

AB - Climate risk perceptions are increasingly influencing corporate behavior, yet their impact on green innovation along the supply chain remains insufficiently understood. We combine customer–supplier links among Chinese listed firms with a BERT-based measure of customer firms' climate-risk perceptions constructed from annual reports. We find that higher customer climate risk perceptions are associated with subsequent increases in supplier green innovation. Mechanism evidence indicates that the effect operates through customers’ market power, technology spillovers, and financial support. The effect is stronger when suppliers have greater digital capability and environmental expertise, and when customers exhibit stronger ESG performance and higher information transparency. Dynamic analyses reveal that short-run responses attenuate over time, whereas persistent signaling sustains innovation momentum. Overall, the results suggest that customer climate-risk perceptions strengthen market-based supply-chain governance and bias technical change toward greener trajectories.

KW - BERT

KW - China

KW - Climate risk perceptions

KW - Green innovation

KW - Supply chain

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105030334875

U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2026.147751

DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2026.147751

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105030334875

SN - 0959-6526

VL - 547

JO - Journal of Cleaner Production

JF - Journal of Cleaner Production

M1 - 147751

ER -