**1. Introduction**

Energy is crucial to a country's economy and people's livelihoods since it is the material underpinning for human survival and development [1]. The majority of people have realized that excessive energy consumption and pollution from the production and use of chemical products will cause an environmental crisis, despite the rapid expansion of the renewable energy industry.

The need to strike a balance between energy corporations' long-term expansion and environmental protection has become a pressing concern [2].

According to Ren et al. (2018), the environmental regulations discussed in this paper are related to those mandatory regulations issued by the government [3]. Environmental regulation (*ER*) is one of the policies initiated by the government to control and protect environmental resources [4]. Environmental regulation's role has received a lot of academic attention. Telle and Larsson (2007) suggested that *ER* does not reduce industrial productivity [5], but Xie et al. (2017) argued that environmental regulation can boost enterprises' industrial production competitiveness [6]. Wang, Y. et al. (2022) consider the diversity of the regulatory role of environmental regulations on the energy sector [7]. *ERs* have a favorable impact on sustainable growth up to a certain amount, but beyond that point, environmental regulation is detrimental to sustainable growth. Later, it was further suggested that environmental regulation has a facilitating effect on firms' performance and

**Citation:** Zhang, H.; Chen, H.H.; Lao, K.; Ren, Z. The Impacts of Resource Endowment, and Environmental Regulations on Sustainability—Empirical Evidence Based on Data from Renewable Energy Enterprises. *Energies* **2022**, *15*, 4678. https://doi.org/10.3390/ en15134678

Academic Editor: Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas

Received: 11 April 2022 Accepted: 9 June 2022 Published: 26 June 2022

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sustainable growth [8]. In addition, *ERs* have a facilitating and then inhibiting effect on the green economy [9]. Further, a combination of policy subsidies and carbon taxes is an effective way to develop low-carbon environmental protection.

Sustainability is the ability to improve living standards within ecological tolerances. Elkington (1994) proposed the concept of a sustainability floor based on social, economic, and environmental perspectives, which is now widely recognized by the academic community [10]. Das et al. (2020) argue that the concept of achieving growth without compromising the prospects of the next generation is increasingly becoming a core concept in business philosophy [11]. Salzmann et al. (2005) and Engert et al. (2016) argue that the regulatory effect of *ERs* on the sustainability of a business or economy varies in effect in different situations [12,13]. There are three main relationships between *ERs* and *SG*: first, environmental regulation has a positive contribution to sustainable growth [14]; second, Curtis and Lee (2019) argue that environmental regulation has a reverse inhibitory effect on sustainable growth [15]. Third, Curtis and Lee (2019) argue that the link between environmental regulation and sustainable growth is considered to be a "hump-shaped" relationship that varies over time [15].

Without resources, no business can expand sustainably, and resource endowment is the most important aspect in promoting long-term success. Zhai and An (2020) discovered that human capital, financial capabilities, technical innovation, and government conduct have a significant positive impact on *SG*, based on survey data from 500 Chinese manufacturing enterprises in 2017 [16]. The factors of education, expertise, and the availability of local entrepreneurial capital, fluctuate along the stages of the entrepreneurial process [17]. It has been argued that resource endowment has a long-term positive effect; specifically, the opportunity cost since resource endowment has the impact of inhibition in the early stage, and when it waits for the later order, resource endowment starts to show its positive effect, thus favoring long-term growth. Wang, S et al. (2022) argue that countries and regions that are rich in natural resources tend to have poorer green economic growth [18]. Government subsidies are the main driver for the long-term growth of renewable energy firms (Yang et al., 2019) [19], and they have been an important policy tool to nurture and promote the renewable energy industry in China (Song et al., 2020) [20]. Peng and Liu (2018) argue that government subsidies have a moderating effect on firm development, with negative and then positive effects developing over time [4]. When businesses receive government subsidies, it signifies that the government has accepted their legal status, which allows them to obtain more resources [21]. According to Lu et al. (2020), finance and subsidy impacts can raise the export size, impacting the long-term viability of firms' export expansion, and social capital plays an important role in fostering long-term growth, since high social capital firms are subjected to more lenient non-price lending requirements, resulting in lower bond interest rates [22].

With its large population and vast land area, China needs to import and use large amounts of energy in its development. The energy structure of China is dominated by traditional energy sources of fossil fuels, and the massive use of fossil fuels will certainly lead to a slew of significant environmental issues, including energy scarcity and pollution. Wu, L. et al. (2021) point out that energy endowment is a major factor in the growth of carbon emissions [23]. People's tolerance for environmental pollution decreases as their money and living standards rise, and the strength of environmental regulation steadily rises, opening up prospects for renewable energy development. Wang, Q et al.'s (2022) research found that renewable energy gives a significant boost to the economy [24]. Renewable energy is crucial for modifying the energy structure, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and fostering long-term growth. Renewable energy businesses have grown quickly in recent years as high-tech industries throughout the world. Increased R&D expenditure is required to strengthen technical innovation and promote long-term growth in order to expand quickly and profitably. Furthermore, a major portion of China's renewable energy businesses are state-owned companies (SOEs), which have greater resources than private businesses. As a result, the research object for this study is renewable energy enterprises.

Do environmental regulations inhibit or promote sustainable company growth? How do different types of environmental regulatory regimes affect the sustainable growth of firms? With the increasing emphasis on resource endowment by firms, how does environmental regulation affect resource endowment and further contribute to firms' sustainable growth? To address these questions, this paper will provide insights into the impact of environmental regulation and resource endowment on firms' sustainable growth from the perspective of Chinese renewable energy firms and provide constructive suggestions for the government to develop more accurate environmental and energy policies.

The following are the main contributions: First, this is the first article that divides environmental regulation into three levels, including economic environmental regulation, legal environmental regulation, and supervisory environmental regulation. Second, for the first time, the impact of environmental regulation on the sustainable development of renewable energy firms is studied and specifically analyzed from the perspective of micro data of firms. Third, this paper is the first to study the relationship between environmental regulation and sustainable growth using resource endowment as a moderating variable. Fourth, this paper analyzes the ownership structure heterogeneity of the impact of resource endowment on sustainable growth, which helps to provide targeted policy recommendations for improving the sustainable growth of renewable energy firms with different ownership structures. Fifth, considering the accuracy and comprehensiveness of variable calculation, this paper uses a weighted algorithm to calculate environmental regulations and principal component analysis to calculate resource endowments.
