Sustainable green innovation is the driving force to promote the green transformation of enterprises and achieve green development. Based on the tournament theory， it adopted the data of China’s A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2023， and used multiple regression analysis model to investigate the impact of executive pay gap on corporate green innovation from the sustainability dimension of green innovation， as well as the chain mediative mechanism of management short-sightedness， executive confidence， risk-taking willingness and innovation investment. It finds that the executive pay gap significantly promotes sustainable green innovation of enterprises， and the promotion effect is mainly to encourage enterprises to increase innovation capital and talent investment by alleviating the short-sightedness of management and enhancing the confidence and risk-taking willingness of executives， and thus indirectly promote sustainable green innovation of enterprises. Compared to the small-scale enterprises， the enterprises with low environmental concern of the government and low level of media supervision， in the large-scale enterprises， the enterprises with high environmental concern of the government and high level of media supervision， executive pay gap has a more significant role in promoting sustainable green innovation of enterprises. The conclusions not only enrich the application scenarios of tournament theory， expand the dimension of green innovation research， but also provide useful reference and enlightenment in the design of executive compensation contract and corporate governance arrangement in order to promote sustainable green innovation of enterprises.