Conference Agenda

Using BoardEx (2000-2017), we create a dynamic network connecting firms and board directors for the United States. We use the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory to measure environmental performance at the director and firm-level. We first examine how candidates' environmental performance and networks affect their probability to be appointed on the board. We find that firms are likely to appoint influential directors with good environmental records and similar characteristics. We then show that directors' past environmental records affect their current firm's chemical releases. We address endogeneity concerns related to directors' appointments and firms' environmental performance by modeling directors' network formation.

To accelerate the pace of green transformation, a country relies heavily on the environmental performance of its firms. In this paper, we investigate whether firms with foreign ownership are more likely to adopt green management practices, helping these firms to monitor and reduce their environmental impact. Using firm-level data for 31 countries from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and North Africa, we show that foreign ownership increases the likelihood of implementing green management practices. However, the magnitude of the relationship depends on foreign direct investment (FDI) host and home country characteristics -- holding only for firms 1) in high- and upper-middle-income countries and 2) in countries receiving the bulk of their FDI from relatively good environmental performing countries. Firms in lower-middle-income countries do not necessarily derive environmental benefits from foreign ownership. In general, we find the relationship to be more pronounced in the manufacturing sector than in the service sector.

This paper examines the relationships between emission reduction policies (ERP), board governance (BG), and greenhouse gas (GHG) performance. The findings expand the understanding of how institutions and policies interact in reducing emissions through ex-post analysis, including analysing the transmission channels in the ERP-GHG nexus. The study utilises a firm level dataset from 29 developed and emerging economies, with 16,660 firm-year observations between 2011 and 2022. First, results confirm and expands earlier literature that ERPs are positively associated with GHG performance. Second, the level of BG matters and demonstrates a statistical and economically relevant moderation effect of ERP on GHG intensity. Firms operating under a “good governance” regime are less prone to engage in greenwashing activities. Using three-way fixed effects with time, country, and business sector fixed effects, the results are partly robust to time lags, alternative emission measures, and sub-samples, such as GHG dependent and small/large firms. Discussion includes implications of the reliability of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) data points. Recommendations are provided for climate policy makers, financial market participants, and other interested stakeholders. Outlook for future research is presented.

While previous studies demonstrate the importance of social norms for explaining the pro-environmental behavior of individual consumers, very few studies examine the role of social norms in the context of businesses’ pro-environmental decisions. This study contributes to the rich social norm literature by exploring whether professional social norms influence the compliance decisions of regulated chemical manufacturing facilities. To this end, the empirical analysis uses data on major facilities regulated under the U.S. Clean Water Act to estimate the link from the compliance history of other major chemical manufacturing facilities operating in the same state to an individual facility’s current compliance decision. The estimates reveal a strong and robust positive effect of other facilities’ compliance history: improvement in the average compliance history prompts the individual facility to increase its own performance. By controlling for other plausible channels that link facility’s compliance decisions, we interpret this relationship as reflecting descriptive professional norms. The relationship proves stronger for facilities that are either geographically or sectorally closer, which supports our interpretation.