Carbon Finance and Green and Circular Supply Chain Adoption under Decarbonisation Pressure: A Responsible Business Leadership Perspective

Abstract

Decarbonization pressure is increasing the need for Moroccan small and medium-sized enterprises to align carbon-related financial conditions with environmental innovation and green and circular supply chain practices. However, previous research has often examined carbon finance, environmental innovation, and sustainable supply chains separately, leaving their combined statistical relationships insufficiently understood in African emerging economies. This study examines the association between carbon finance and green and circular supply chain adoption among Moroccan small and medium-sized enterprises and assesses the indirect role of environmental innovation and the conditional roles of digital capability, institutional pressure, and managerial sustainability perception. Responsible business leadership is used as an interpretative perspective for understanding how decision-makers perceive decarbonization pressures and mobilize organizational resources; it was not directly measured as an empirical construct. The analysis draws on 119 valid questionnaires collected between November 2025 and April 2026 from enterprises operating in the industrial, agri-food, and logistics sectors. The questionnaire used a five-point response scale and purposive firm selection. The data were analyzed using reliability assessment, exploratory factor analysis, multiple regression, mediation and moderation analysis, and bootstrap estimation based on 5,000 resamples. Carbon finance was positively associated with green and circular supply chain adoption, with an unstandardized estimate of 0.336, while the pre-mediation total-effect regression model for G&CSC adoption, including carbon finance, the two sector dummy variables, and the other firm-level controls, explained 66.23 percent of the variance (R² = 0.6623). Environmental innovation showed a statistically significant indirect association between carbon finance and green and circular supply chain adoption, with an indirect effect estimate of 0.2655 and a 95 per cent bootstrap confidence interval ranging from 0.1375 to 0.4381. The mediator-adjusted direct association was positive but not statistically significant (B = 0.0701, p = 0.355). Digital capability and institutional pressure did not significantly moderate the tested associations, whereas managerial sustainability perception significantly moderated the association between environmental innovation and green and circular supply chain adoption. The study offers preliminary evidence relevant to responsible business leadership by showing how perceived carbon-finance and carbon-oriented financial-management conditions may be statistically connected with innovation-oriented supply-chain sustainability among Moroccan small and medium-sized enterprises. The findings suggest that policymakers and enterprise decision-makers may consider carbon-related financial support alongside environmental innovation measures while recognizing the limits of purposive sampling, single-informant measurement, cross-sectional data, and the need for confirmation in independent and longitudinal studies.