When the state buys: Public procurement and supplier climate risk transparency

Using a large sample of Chinese non-SOEs (2015–2021), we study whether public procurement, an important contracting channel, shapes suppliers’ climate risk disclosure (CRD). We find that procurement exposure significantly increases CRD. The effect is stronger when institutional and stakeholder pressures raise the payoff to credibility: low policy uncertainty, high government ecological focus, severe extreme weather and air pollution, greater green-investor ownership, high-tech status, and stronger peer CRD. We further show procurement enhances firms’ information-production capacity by strengthening sustainability governance (committees and expert directors), expanding green innovation (green R&D and patents), and upgrading management systems (AI adoption and digital transformation).