A Review of Factors Influencing Corporate Environmental Performance

With mounting multi-stakeholder pressure on carbon emission reduction, Corporate Environmental Performance (CEP) has emerged as both a critical indicator of social legitimacy and a constitutive element within sustainable business frameworks. Based on authoritative literature for the period 2020-2025, this review adopts a systematic analytical approach that aims to identify and categorize the key factors influencing CEP. The review first examines the regulatory and disclosure mechanisms that incentivize companies to improve CEP, and explores internal drivers including initiatives such as corporate social responsibility and environmental management systems. Subsequently, the study elucidates the dual catalytic role of green financial instruments and digital transformation in accelerating environmental initiative adoption at scale. Market dynamics and stakeholder pressures are subsequently analyzed. The review also identifies gaps in the research, especially the aspect that the interaction of multiple factors is under-researched. The findings underscore that factor synergies constitute the most effective pathway for CEP enhancement to advance the theory and practice of sustainable environmental performance in business.