Abstract
While the dual carbon strategy promotes nationwide green transformation, regional ecological governance and environmental-economic development remain uneven across China. Corporate greenwashing has happened frequently in recent years, which has affected corporate business decisions and risk-taking willingness in a striking way. Taking the A-share listed companies in China from 2010 to 2024 as the sample, this paper tested the impact of greenwashing on the risk-taking level of enterprises through empirical analysis; financing constraints and market competition intensity, from the perspectives of internal resources and external environment, were introduced as moderating variables to further investigate the differences between the two under various boundary conditions across different regional ecological endowments and industrial pollution intensities. The research showed that corporate greenwashing significantly lowered the level of risk-taking; financing constraints and market competition intensity would amplify the negative impact even more. Based on multiple theoretical perspectives, this paper expanded the research scope of the greenwashing economy’s consequences and improved the logical analysis of enterprise risk decision-making. The research findings can provide references for enterprises to disclose standard ESG information, curb greenwashing behavior, and optimize the risk-bearing mechanism for the coordinated governance of ecological protection and industrial economic development.