Board gender diversity, environmental committee and greenhouse gas voluntary disclosures

Abstract

We explore the impact of gender diversity and environmental committees on greenhouse gas (GHG) voluntary disclosures utilising a sample of 215 firms, which are listed on the London Stock Exchange market. We provide strong evidence for a strong positive association between GHG voluntary disclosures and gender diversity, which constitutes an important input to the ongoing debate about the role of women in the boardroom. The governance mechanism of environmental committees is not found to significantly affect GHG disclosures. This adds to the growing empirical evidence in the literature that questions the effectiveness of the current board structures in serving the wider needs of stakeholders and in addressing the relevant issues on climate change. Overall, our results suggest that by being diverse and open to a mixed‐gender governance approach, a firm can better serve the demands of stakeholders and legitimise their green credentials, thus gaining more trust from a broad range of stakeholders other than their shareholders. The noneffectiveness of the environmental committees in enhancing GHG voluntary disclosures demonstrates that firms may not have to directly link the relevant governance mechanism to their disclosure decisions and practices.

Nudging toward diversity in the boardroom: A systematic literature review of board diversity of financial institutions

“…We searched for all published documents on board diversity of financial institutions. To provide a comprehensive systematic review of the literature, we follow the SLR methodology of Amrutha and Geetha (2020), Cruz‐González, Rodríguez, and Segovia (2020), and Sulaiman and Mustafa (2020) and rely on Scopus and Web of Science databases to search the following keywords: “board diversity,” “board composition,” “Female director*,” “gender diversity,” “women director*,” “board tenure,” “education* diversity,” “ethnic diversity,” “national* diversity,” “cognitive diversity,” “demographic* diversity,” “bank*,” and “financial institution*.” The board diversity keywords were identified after reviewing the similar publication and definitions of board diversity (i.e., Baker et al, 2020; Galbreath, 2017; Kagzi & Guha, 2018; Khatib et al, 2020; Tingbani et al, 2020). Boardroom diversity is the heterogeneity among the members of boards in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, education, and experience.…”

“…Similarly, it has been documented in the literature that more diversified board may bring benefits to the boardroom by improving connections and networking that could be beneficial for expanding business in areas might be overlooked (Bufarwa, Elamer, Ntim, & AlHares, 2020; Gulamhussen & Santa, 2015; Haque & Ntim, 2020; Khan, Hussain, et al, 2019; Khan, Khan, & Saeed, 2019; Pucheta‐Martínez & Bel‐Oms, 2019; Shahab et al, 2020; Shahab, Ntim, Chengang, Ullah, & Fosu, 2018; Shahab, Ntim, Ullah, Yugang, & Ye, 2020). Board diversity, for example, can assist firms in gaining different information and wider exposure to the environment from suppliers, customers, policymakers, as well as social groups and competitors (Elsharkawy, Paterson, & Sherif, 2018; Horbach & Jacob, 2018; Tingbani, Chithambo, Tauringana, & Papanikolaou, 2020). Moreover, board diversity enhances board independence and decision‐making quality as it takes the views of underrepresented groups into account (Agyemang‐Mintah & Schadewitz, 2019; Elmagrhi, Ntim, Elamer, & Zhang, 2018; Ferrero‐Ferrero, Fernández‐Izquierdo, & Muñoz‐Torres, 2015; Glass, Cook, & Ingersoll, 2016).…”

Do independent, female and specialist directors promote eco‐innovation and eco‐design in agri‐food firms?

“…In this sense, Amore and Bennedsen (2016) consider internal corporate governance mechanisms to be relevant because its ineffectiveness can be a major obstacle to the efficiency of environmental innovation. In this sense, the mechanisms of good corporate governance are unquestionably associated with the board of directors, and it is necessary to highlight the independence, diversity and environmental specialization of this body (Tingbani, Chithambo, Tauringana, & Papanikolaou, 2020).…”

Gender Diversity in Boards of Directors: A Bibliometric Mapping

“…Ultimately, the metaphor of the glass ceiling, which defines the challenges women have to face in order to move up in a company, has paved the way for the metaphor of the glass cliff; although this issue has slowly improved over the years and more women are reaching higher positions, they are forced to deal with various difficult situations and problems that push them to the edge of this invisible cliff [80]. This additional barrier, along with the study of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, are the most innovative lines of research, as they are the most highly addressed topics in recent articles [36,81,82].…”