Measuring the quantity of environmental governance investment with environmental protection investment and the quality of environmental governance investment with green innovation, this paper conducts empirical tests on the impact of pollutant emission assessment on the environmental governance investment of central state-owned enterprises in energy-saving and environmental-protection. The pollutant emissions assessment significantly promotes the increase both in the quantity and quality of environmental governance investment. The mechanism test shows that pollutant emission assessment drives the quantity and quality of environmental governance investment by improving the environmental protection awareness of executives. Heterogeneity test shows that when the environmental regulation is strong or the enterprise scale is large, the pollutant emission assessment of energy-saving and environmental-protection central state-owned enterprises has a more significant driving effect on environmental governance investment. The results show that pollutant emission assessment, driven by investment in environmental governance, ultimately improves the environmental governance performance of these enterprises. The implication is that it is necessary to link the implementation of corporate environmental governance responsibilities with the personal interests of executives, fully stimulate the internal driving force of corporate environmental governance, so as to improve the effectiveness of corporate environmental governance.