*3.1. Data and Samples*

This study used panel data of Chinese-listed companies in A-shares from 2007–2021 as a research sample to test the influence of executives with environmental protection backgrounds on corporate green innovation. First, the original data on executives' environmental protection backgrounds were obtained from the publicly available executive biographical information in the China Stock Market Accounting Research Database (CS-MAR) and the WIND database (WIND), and the data on executive characteristics were collected. Second, the green innovation data were obtained from the China Research Data Platform (CNRDS) and the "International Patent Classification Green List" released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2010. Third, financial and corporate governance structure data were obtained from the CSMAR database. These databases provide reliable analytical data on all listed companies in China and have been used for other management and strategy studies [57]. Furthermore, the specific data samples selection process: (i) excluded listed insurance and finance companies; (ii) excluded special treatment (ST) sample companies that had abnormal financial indicators; (iii) excluded sample companies listed less than one year; (iv) eliminated the missing samples; and (v) obtained a total of 19,975 observations. The sample calculation process in this paper is shown in Table 1. In addition, this study performed data analysis based on stata15 statistical software.

**Table 1.** Sample data calculation process.


#### *3.2. Variables Definition*

#### 3.2.1. Dependent Variable

Corporate green innovation (GI). Consistent with existing green innovation studies in the Chinese context and considering the availability of Chinese data, this study used green patents as an indicator of GI [58]. First, the other proxies for green innovation, such as research and development (R&D) expenditure [59], represented actual output efficiency [60]. Second, as green patents are capable of generating positive externality for environmental protection and emission control in the long term, which is helpful to sustainable growth [61], this study used the number of green patent applications by Chinese listed companies to measure green innovation, specifically, matching the patent classification numbers of invention patents and model patents of listed companies, and the patent data retrieved from China Research Data Platform (CNRDS) according to the "Green List of International Patent Classification" issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2010. The number of green patent applications was obtained by matching the patent data retrieved from CNRDS based on the "International Patent Classification Green List" issued by WIPO in 2010. The quality of green innovation was measured by the number of green invention patent applications, and the number of green utility model patent applications measured the quantity of green innovation. The above two measures are summed up to obtain the total number of green innovations (GRInno).
