As environmental sustainability becomes increasingly critical to corporate strategies, firms must adapt to growing environmental concerns and regulatory pressures. Despite substantial research on environmental investment, the role of executive environmental experience remains underexplored. We use text mining techniques to measure executive environmental experience and a two-way fixed effects model to examine how executive environmental experience affects corporate environmental investment decisions. Our analysis reveals that executives with strong environmental backgrounds are more likely to drive significant investments in environmental initiatives. Our study also identifies two key mechanisms: heightened environmental attention and enhanced green innovation, through which executive experience influences corporate behavior. Heterogeneity analysis results show that the effect of executive environmental experience is magnified when firms are located in regions with high environmental penalties. Executive environmental experience significantly enhances the environmental investment of heavy polluters compared to non-heavy polluters. Meanwhile, media attention also amplifies the positive effect of executive environmental experience. The findings offer new insights into the micro-level drivers of environmental investment and contribute to the growing literature on corporate environmental governance. This research extends the upper echelon theory by integrating environmental economics and provides valuable guidance for firms aiming to enhance their sustainability practices.