Environmental Regulations and Corporate Green Innovation in China: The Role of City Leaders’ Promotion Pressure

China and other emerging market countries have suffered from the problem of environmental pollution while developing rapidly in the past few decades. In recent years, many countries have introduced strict environmental regulations in order to achieve sustainable development. This paper discusses the relationship between environmental regulations and corporate green innovation from the perspective of regional leaders’ promotion pressure. The empirical results show that direct policy regulation within the region stimulates green innovation on the part of enterprises, and the promotion pressure of city leaders has a further positive moderating effect on the positive correlation between environmental regulations and enterprises’ green innovation. The conclusion of the study proves that a strict environmental policy can promote the effectiveness of an environmental performance appraisal system in the sustainable development plans of cities and enterprises. This paper not only reveals the influence path of official promotion pressure on the sustainable development of enterprises in the administrative area from the micro perspective but also sheds some light that may improve government governance and promote the transformation of enterprises.