Associate Professor Xiaohang Ren, a researcher at the Base, has published a collaborative paper titled "Climate Risk Exposure of Global Energy Companies: Green Chain Vulnerability and Countermeasures" in the important academic journal Journal of Environmental Management.

Abstract: We investigate how green energy supply chain vulnerabilities (GESCV) amplify climate-related risk exposure among major energy firms across 36 countries from 2010 to 2023. Our benchmark model substantiates that GESCV amplifies corporate exposure to climate-related risks, with risk quantified using the Fama-French Three-Factor model. The adverse effects remain pronounced in developing countries, fossil fuel-based firms, and high-climate policy uncertainty groups. Mechanism-wise, GESCV heightens climate-related risk exposure by diminishing total asset turnover and worsening investment inefficiency. Further analysis reveals that governance quality is the only significant factor mitigating the detrimental link between GESCV and climate risk exposure, whereas women's political empowerment and environmental technologies exhibit minimal influence. Additionally, a difference-in-differences (DID) model confirms that the Paris Agreement has played a role in easing the negative consequences of GESCV on climate-related risk exposure. These findings underscore the need for governance enhancements, diversified supply chain strategies, and policy-driven investments in green technologies as essential measures to curb climate risks during the global energy transition.

Keywords: Firm climate-related risk exposure；Renewable supply chain；Energy vulnerabilities；The s agreement

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.124755

Teacher profile

Xiaohang Ren is a Distinguished Associate Professor at the Business School, Central South University, an Elsevier China Highly Cited Researcher, and a Top 2% Scientist Worldwide. He mainly engages in research on energy finance, financial risk, and financial econometrics. He has published more than 100 papers in authoritative journals at home and abroad,including Journal of the American Statistical Association,Transportation Research Part A, Energy Economics, Quantitative Finance, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, International Review of Financial Analysis, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Business Strategy and the Environment, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Applied Energy, Resources Policy, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, Energy, Journal of Management Sciences in China (English Edition), Systems Engineering — Theory and Practice, and Chinese Journal of Management Science. Among these, more than 30 are ESI Hot Papers/Highly Cited Papers. He serves as Section Editor of Sustainable Communities (Taylor & Francis), Associate Editor of journals such as Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (the only humanities and social sciences journal under Nature), and Guest Editor of several SSCI journals including Climate Change Economics and Economic Change and Restructuring