Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of research and development (R&D) investment and environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance on green innovation performance. This paper also investigates the moderating effect of ESG performance between R&D investment and green innovation performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses the data of 223 Chinese listed companies over the period 2015–2018. The ESG indices issued by SynTao Green Finance are used to measure ESG performance. Green innovation performance is measured by the total number of green patents, the number of green invention patents and the number of green non-invention patents. Finally, multiple regression analysis is applied to test the research hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that R&D investment has a positive impact on green innovation performance and ESG performance can increase the number of green invention patents. In addition, ESG performance moderates the relationship between R&D investment and green innovation performance.

Practical implications

The findings may help managers and policymakers in developing countries to make ecological innovation strategies to achieve corporate sustainability.

Originality/value

This is the first study to examine the impacts of R&D investment and ESG performance on green innovation performance in the context of China, an emerging market.