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Enterprises are key actors in green governance. Many studies have analyzed the factors that affect corporate environmental performance, but the impact of internal control on environmental performance has not been investigated yet. China’s innovative internal control policies make this issue more meaningful for research. Unlike the general practices of developed market economy countries or regions which require enterprises to evaluate and disclose the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, China’s policy focuses on multi-objective internal control. Using the instrumental variables regression method, this paper employs a moderated mediation model to study the relationship between internal control and environmental performance. This paper takes listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2013 to 2021 as the sample. Empirical results show that high-quality internal control is conducive to enhancing environmental performance, while the level of enterprise digitalization plays a mediating role in the relationship between the two, and ownership type moderates the effects of internal control on environmental performance. The conclusion indicates that China’s internal control policy is of great significance for the green development of enterprises. Our study contributes to the literature on both the factors affecting environmental performance and the economic consequences of internal control. The study findings can be beneficial for managers in corporations, internal control policymakers and environmental regulators.