Grounded on the strategic orientation of China’s “double carbon” goal, how to effectively internalize the pressure of environmental regulation into green innovation for manufacturing enterprises to establish a high-quality corporate green image in the “zero-carbon” wave has become an urgent problem to be solved. Thus, based on institutional theory and stakeholders-RBV, this study constructs a logical chain of “environmental regulation—green innovation—green image”, and uses the data of Listed Companies in China’s heavily polluting manufacturing industry from 2014 to 2021 to explore the mechanism and boundary conditions in the relationship between environmental regulation and enterprise green image. The results indicated that: (1) both command control and market incentive environmental regulation promote enterprise green image; however, command-and-control environmental regulations have a more significant effect on governmental green image, while market-incentive environmental regulations have a more significant effect on non-governmental green image, and the above influence process is found to be non-linear through the threshold effect model; (2) the three dimensions of green innovation (green product innovation, green process innovation, and green organization innovation) are all important channels for transforming environmental regulations into enterprise green image; and (3) ethical leadership promotes the positive effect of environmental regulation on green image; and environmental ethics and green human capital positively moderate the effects of environmental regulation on green innovation. In addition, the research conclusion is still valid by conducting the endogenous and robustness test. In conclusion, this study not only introduces different subdivision dimensions of green image as dependent variables but also explores the mediating role of green innovation in the relationship between environmental regulation and green image, thus breaking the limitation of incoherence between antecedents and results of green innovation research. Moreover, this study expands the boundary of green innovation research from the aspects of environmental ethics culture, leadership effectiveness, and employee behavior, which provides a theoretical reference for promoting enterprises to respond to the national carbon neutralization goal and actively carry out green innovation practices.