From End-of-Pipe Governance to Systemic Transformation: Evaluating Pollution Emission Performance in China’s Listed Steel Companies

As pollution reduction, carbon mitigation, and the green transition of energy-intensive industries accelerate worldwide, how pollution emission performance is formed in the steel industry remains insufficiently understood. Unlike previous studies that regard pollution emission performance as a single environmental outcome, this study develops a three-dimensional framework integrating industrial development, environmental performance, and socio-economic performance (IES). To address this gap, we combine comprehensive evaluation, coupling coordination analysis, and obstacle diagnosis to assess the pollution emission performance of China’s listed steel companies from 2019 to 2024. The results show that: (1) the overall pollution emission performance of the steel industry continued to improve, with significant increases in the industrial level and environmental benefit subsystems, whereas the socio-economic subsystem declined continuously after 2021 and dropped to 0.461 in 2024, becoming a key bottleneck constraining overall improvement. (2) The coupling coordination degree among the IES subsystems generally increased, but differences among enterprises remained, indicating that the green transition of listed steel companies did not progress synchronously. (3) The obstacle degree results indicate that environmental constraints were relatively prominent in the early stage of the study period, the industrial dimension generated periodic pressure around 2021, and the relative contribution of the socio-economic dimension increased during 2022–2024. These findings provide empirical evidence for evaluating pollution emission performance, identifying key weaknesses, and designing differentiated management strategies for listed steel companies in China.