Green finance, technological innovation, and low-carbon development in logistics industry: mechanisms and threshold effects

Under the "dual carbon" goal, it is necessary for China's logistics industry to accelerate its green and low-carbon transformation. At the same time, the increasingly mature development of green finance and the continuous improvement of technological innovation are expected to provide impetus for low-carbon development. This study is based on 450 sample data from 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2019, exploring how green finance and technological innovation affect the low-carbon development of the logistics industry, as well as the mechanisms and heterogeneity characteristics of the moderating variables of industrial structure and environmental regulation in the above process. We find that: Firstly, green finance and technological innovation can promote low-carbon development in the logistics industry. Secondly, industrial structure and environmental regulation play a regulatory and threshold role in the procedure of green finance and technological innovation promoting low-carbon development in the logistics industry. Thirdly, the above effects all exhibit significant heterogeneity characteristics. Thus, green finance and technological innovation, coupled with more reasonable industrial structure policies and appropriate environmental regulation, should be taken into full consideration to effectively achieve low-carbon development in the logistics industry. Furthermore, considering that low-carbon development in the logistics industry has become more complex due to factors such as different regional and economic development levels, this paper proposes a targeted differentiated approach to low-carbon development in the logistics industry, i.e., a "phased, regional, and gradual development" strategy. This has important theoretical significance and practical value for China, which is in a stage of rapid and unbalanced development, to achieve its "dual carbon" goals.