Article
Climate-Conscious Capital and the Net-Zero Transition: Evidence on Green Finance and Corporate Sustainability Outcomes
The movement of the world towards the low-carbon economy has heightened the significance of green finance and climate-wise capital allocation in the corporate sustainability plans. This research paper will discuss how green investment and adoption of renewable energy have an impact on corporate sustainability performance of Indian energy and climate-transition corporations. The study uses 200 firm-years of 20 companies to analyse the yearly trends in ESG reporting based on Secondary data on annual reports, ESG disclosures, sustainability reports, and BRSR reports of 20 companies covering the period 2016-2025. The SPSS was utilized to identify the correlation between green finance and sustainability performance in terms of ESG performance and carbon emission, by using statistical methods including; descriptive statistics, trend analysis and analysis of multiple regression. The results show that the proportion of green investment and adoption of renewable energy has increased tremendously throughout the period of the study, which is an indication of an increase in the dedication of firms to environmental sustainability and transitioning to the net-zero. Regression outcomes show that green investment is very significant in carbon emission reduction and has a positive impact on ESG performance where use of renewable energy is very effective in enhancing corporate sustainability results. The profitability in terms of ROA, however, has no significant impact on the ESG performance, which implies that the sustainability improvements are not only pushed by the strategic environmental investments but also by the short-term financial performance. The paper notes the important role played by climate-conscious capital in Catalyzing the net-zero transition and empirically demonstrates how the green finance mechanisms could lead to the sustainable corporate development in the emerging economies.