How Does Urban Green Data Center Policy Empower Corporate Energy Utilization Efficiency? Evidence from China

Against the backdrop of China’s “dual-carbon” goals and the deepening national digital transformation strategy, urban green data center development has emerged as a key policy instrument for improving firms’ energy utilization efficiency and advancing the green and low-carbon transition. Drawing on unbalanced firm-year panel that links Chinese A-share listed firms to prefecture-level cities from 2012 to 2024, this study employs a staggered-adoption difference-in-differences (DID) framework to systematically estimate the effect of urban green data center policy on corporate energy utilization efficiency and to clarify the mechanisms at play. The results show that the policy significantly enhances firms’ energy utilization efficiency. Mechanism tests suggest that the effect operates primarily through two channels: improved ESG performance and policy-induced increases in firms’ green investment. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that the policy impact is stronger in resource-based cities, in more competitive industries, and among mature-stage firms. Moderation analyses further show that executives’ green cognition significantly strengthens the policy’s marginal effect on energy utilization efficiency. By contrast, executives’ digital cognition tends to weaken the policy effect when considered alone; however, when executives simultaneously exhibit high levels of both green and digital cognition, their synergistic alignment yields a significantly positive enabling effect. Specifically, an integrated cognitive profile helps alleviate the adjustment costs of early-stage digital transformation and fosters integrated innovation between green and digital technologies, thereby further reinforcing the policy’s enabling role. In addition, as successive pilot batches expand, the policy’s diffusion effect exhibits a nonlinear trajectory, increasing initially and then declining thereafter. Building on these findings, this study derives policy implications and provides China-specific empirical evidence and managerial insights for developing countries seeking to achieve energy transition and sustainable development while unlocking digital dividends.