The environmental implications of corporate economic activities have led to growing demands for firms and their boards to adopt sustainable strategies and to disseminate more useful information about their activities and impacts on environment. This paper investigates the impact of board's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy and orientation on the quantity and quality of environmental sustainability disclosure in UK listed firms. We find that effective board CSR strategy and CSR-oriented directors have a positive and significant impact on the quality of environmental sustainability disclosure, but not on the quantity. Our findings also suggest that the existence of a CSR committee and issuance of a stand-alone CSR report are positively and significantly related to environmental sustainability disclosure. When we distinguish between firms with high and low environmental risk, we find that the board CSR/sustainability practices that affect the quantity (quality) of environmental sustainability disclosure appear to be driven more by highly (lowly) environmentally sensitive firms. These results suggest that the board CSR/sustainability practices play an important role in ensuring a firm's legitimacy and accountability towards stakeholders. Our findings shed new light on this under-researched area and could be of interest to companies, policy-makers and other stakeholders.

Overwhelming evidence from prior research suggests a positive association between corporate board characteristics and carbon performance; however, very little is known about the mechanisms linking the two variables. This study attempts to fill this gap by developing and empirically testing a conceptual model that highlights the role of carbon strategy in the relationship between board environmental orientation (BEO) and carbon performance. We argue that BEO can directly and indirectly influence carbon performance through carbon strategy. Using structural equation modelling to analyse data consisting of 2,301 US firm-year observations over the 2005-2015 period, we find that the greater the BEO is, the better its carbon performance (i.e., lower greenhouse gas emissions). The results also provide evidence of the mediating effect of carbon strategy on the relationship between BEO and carbon performance. Splitting the sample into high and low carbon-intensive industries shows a partial mediation effect in high carbon-intensive industries and a full mediation effect in low carbonintensive industries. The findings of the study and its implications for scholars, policy makers, managers, investors and environmentalists are discussed.

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals persuade governments and businesses to fight modern slavery as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The UK government took the initiative by introducing the Modern Slavery Act in 2015. Despite this, little is known about how companies disclose information about their efforts to tackle modern slavery as required by the Act and the role of corporate governance as a determinant of modern slavery disclosure (MSD) levels. This study, therefore, investigates the extent to which companies engage in MSD and empirically examines the impact of board gender diversity (BGD) on MSD. Based on a content analysis of FTSE 100 companies' modern slavery statements during the 2016–2020 period, we find that MSD improved over time but is still relatively low. Our results show that companies pay less attention to the core practices of modern slavery, such as key performance indicators (KPIs), due diligence procedures, risk assessment and management, and training. This evidence suggests that companies tend to comply with the Act by focusing largely on symbolic structures rather than providing a comprehensive disclosure of their impacts on modern slavery practices to minimise regulatory risks and manage stakeholders' perceptions. We also find that boards with greater female representation have a positive and significant association with MSD. This finding is consistent with the gender socialisation theory in that women are more sensitive to communal values and ethics. Consequently, companies with a greater proportion of female directors are more transparent about their strategies and actions related to fighting modern slavery. Furthermore, a critical mass of at least four female directors is necessary before any positive impact on MSD can be observed. Our findings shed new light on this under‐researched area and the role of female directors in addressing modern slavery risk and can be of interest to companies, policymakers, and other stakeholders.