Corporate environmental information disclosure reflects the outcomes of corporate environmental governance, and is also an important basis for investors to assess firms’ environmental performance. As a fundamental institutional arrangement for deepening the market-oriented reform and improving capital market functions, the registration system reform (RSR) is centered on information disclosure. As an important component of corporate information disclosure, environment-related matters have gradually been incorporated into the whole process of IPO due diligence, prospectus disclosure, and exchange review in the context of the RSR. Against this background, a question worth discussing is whether the disclosure constraints strengthened by the RSR will affect peer firms’ environmental information disclosure behavior through industry spillover effects, thereby generating broader environmental governance effects.

Using data from China’s A-share listed companies from 2013 to 2024, this paper takes the first appearance of a registration-based listed firm in an industry as the RSR shock, constructs a staggered DID model, and examines the impact of the RSR on peer firms’ environmental information disclosure and its underlying mechanisms from the perspective of information spillover. The results show that the RSR significantly improves the environmental information disclosure level of listed companies in the same industry, and increases substantive rather than strategic environmental information disclosure of listed companies to a greater extent. Mechanism testing shows that the RSR works through the external pressures arising from increased negative media cove-rage and investor on-site visits, and the internal governance channels involving increased green investment and improved green performance. Moderating effects show that the spillover effects are more significant when industry competition pressure is stronger, government environmental governance pressure is greater, and firms employ executives with environmental backgrounds. The analysis of economic consequences shows that the improvement in environmental information disclosure induced by the RSR promotes corporate green innovation and mitigates green agency conflicts.

This paper partially fills the gap in the literature on the spillover effects of the RSR on corporate environmental information disclosure. Meanwhile, the findings provide empirical evidence and policy implications for promoting the green transformation of the real economy through deepening the capital market reform.