Environmental sustainability and firm performance: Unpacking the productivity effects of green data center pilots

Infrastructure has become a core production factor, and its greening and efficiency have emerged as national priorities. However, causal evidence on whether China's Green Data Center Pilots raise firm-level labor productivity remains scarce. The study relies on the panel of A-share listed firms over 2012-2023 and estimate a staggered difference-in-differences design to identify the pilot's effect and its mechanism. The gains are concentrated among firms with low R&D uncertainty, low financial risk, and no university-industry collaborations. Mechanism tests show that the pilot improves productivity by curbing low-quality overtime; moreover, data-asset disclosure and embedding in global innovation networks attenuate the adverse marginal effect of overtime, thereby moderating the strength of the mediation channel. The study brings green digital infrastructure into the firm-level labor-productivity framework. Practically, it suggests prioritizing firms with strong absorptive capacity and low financial constraints, and strengthening data-governance disclosure and global collaboration to raise the marginal productivity of overtime and amplify policy returns.