How does green entrepreneurship affect environmental improvement? Empirical findings from 293 enterprises

Enterprises tend to change their production and emission behaviours to foster green entrepreneurship under endogenous innovation development pressure and exogenous environmental regulation. This research innovatively establishes a theoretical framework on the dual dynamic linkage of environmental regulation and green entrepreneurship. Based on the sample data of 293 thermoelectric industry enterprises during 2017–2020, this empirical research first measures green entrepreneurship with the entropy method and finds that Zhejiang has cultivated green entrepreneurship at a primary level. Green entrepreneurship witnessed growth from 2016 to 2019. The dynamic regression identification then validates the stimulatory effect of environmental regulation on green entrepreneurship cultivation through internal competitiveness enhancement. Finally, with the application of the triple difference method (DDD), this research verifies that green entrepreneurship is positive in cultivating technological innovation and significantly facilitates environmental regulation to achieve better regulation effects through overall enterprise pollution emissions, total sulfur dioxide emissions, and total nitrogen oxide emissions. It is necessary to coordinate all aspects to cultivate green entrepreneurship and green growth in the future.