This article takes a quasi natural experiment on the implementation of a leading cadres’ natural resources assets exit audit(natural resources assets exit audit)in China in 2014 to examine in depth the impact of the audit pilot implementation on the fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibility and the role of corporate heterogeneity and governance mechanisms in it. The results of this study show that: the natural resource asset exit audit significantly improves the level of corporate environmental responsibility fulfillment, and the positive effect is more significant among state owned enterprises, resource based and heavily polluting enterprises, and enterprises with deficient internal governance mechanisms; the economic consequence test shows that corporate environmental responsibility fulfillment helps to improve their long term performance or value. This paper reveals the positive utility of natural resource asset release audits in environmental governance, which helps to enrich and expand cross sectional research in areas such as audit services to national governance.