<p>Green transformation is a prevailing trend in the future development of enterprises, and exploring its impact on corporate profitability aligns more closely with decision-making. Combined with text analysis, this study delineates green transformation into perception and behavior dimensions and employs data from Chinese listed companies between 2008 and 2022 to construct a mediation effect model. The results reveal that: (1) corporate green perception transformation effectively promotes green behavior transformation, indicating that Chinese listed companies have achieved a dual green transformation in both perception and behavior; (2) corporate green behavior transformation plays a mediating role, which is manifested as a suppressing effect. That is, green perception transformation can promote green behavior transformation, and corporate green behavior transformation enhances profitability, counteracting the decline in profitability associated with green perception transformation; and (3) heterogeneity analysis indicates that green behavior with high-quality and in non-heavy-polluting enterprises significantly counteract the profitability declining caused by green perception transformation, while green behaviors with low-quality and in heavily polluting enterprises do not improve profitability and exhibit no mediation effect. According to the results, China should continue to encourage enterprises to engage in high-quality green behavior transformation, mitigate greenwashing, and implement differentiated green subsidy policies based on quality and industry heterogeneity.</p>