decoupling; environmental incidents; environmental policy; ESG rating; greenwashing; monitoring; stakeholder engagement; sustainable development; Development; Strategy and Management; Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Résumé :
[en] In this study, we investigate how internal and external monitoring systems can help combat greenwashing. We propose a novel, incident-based measure to investigate the greenwashing behavior of 1218 large and mid-cap companies across different industries between 2008 and 2020. These companies are constituents of the MSCI World Index, covering 23 developed market economies. We consider a company to be engaged in greenwashing if it improves its environmental ESG subscore while simultaneously being responsible for severe environmental damage. According to our greenwashing indicator, about 7% of the companies were involved in greenwashing at least once during the 13-year sample period. The proportion of greenwashing companies is highest in the energy, utilities, and materials industries. We find evidence that both internal and external monitoring mechanisms can be effective in deterring companies from adopting greenwashing strategies. Firms with more independent board members, attracting more attention from the investors, and headquartered in countries where the population is more environmentally aware are significantly less likely to engage in greenwashing. The awareness of the population is a key factor especially in the energy, utility, and material sectors.
Disciplines :
Gestion de l’entreprise, entrepreneuriat & théorie des organisations
Auteur, co-auteur :
Keresztúri, Judit Lilla ; Institute of Finance, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
BERLINGER, Edina ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (FDEF) > Department of Finance (DF) ; Institute of Finance, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
Lublóy, Ágnes ; Department of Accounting and Finance, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Rīga, Latvia
Co-auteurs externes :
yes
Langue du document :
Anglais
Titre :
Environmental policy and stakeholder engagement: Incident-based, cross-country analysis of firm-level greenwashing practices
Date de publication/diffusion :
2024
Titre du périodique :
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management
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