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The carbon emissions trading scheme (CETS) is an important institutional innovation that internalizes external costs caused by corporate carbon emissions and promotes firms to engage in green development. Based on a 2009–2019 sample of Chinese enterprises of heavily polluting industries listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), this paper employs the difference‐in‐differences model to examine the effect of CETS on corporate green investment and discuss the moderating effects of external pressure and internal incentive. We find that the implementation of CETS significantly promotes corporate green investment, and this finding still holds after a series of robustness tests such as Propensity Score Matching‐Difference in Differences (PSM‐DID) method and alternative measure of green investment. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effect of CETS is stronger in large‐scale enterprises, state‐owned firms, and companies located in regions with strict environmental regulation. In addition, less local government intervention and more internal executive compensation incentive significantly enhance the positive impact of CETS on corporate green investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enterprises need to innovate business strategies to deal with the negative effects of low‐carbon development, among which digital transformation is an important breakthrough technology. This paper discusses the impact of low‐carbon development on enterprises' digital transformation. Theoretical analysis shows that environmental regulations driven by low‐carbon development have the compensatory effect of stimulating enterprise digital transformation to mitigate misallocation of capital and labor, especially for enterprises with higher productivity. In addition, both the construction of network infrastructure and the development of digital finance can strengthen the incentives for enterprises' digital transformation. The empirical tests based on Chinese A‐share listed enterprises show that the degree of enterprises' digital transformation increases by 0.0122 standard deviation for every one standard deviation reduction in regional carbon emission intensity. These results deepen the understanding of the relationship between green development and microenterprise digitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically examines the effect of biomass energy consumption and economic complexity on environmental sustainability in G7 economies. The current study attempts to report a comprehensive analysis of biomass energy and economic complexity on ecological and carbon footprints and carbon emissions. We employ data from 1990 to 2019 and adopt robust panel econometric techniques that account for the analysis's cross‐sectional dependence. We conduct cointegration analysis, pooled ordinary least squares (OLS), system generalized method of moments (GMM) and conditional quantile model for our empirical analysis. The empirical findings show that both biomass energy consumption and economic complexity are detrimental to the ecological footprint and carbon footprint. Additionally, we find that globalization positively affects the environment, while we find some evidence that bureaucratic quality improves environmental quality. Finally, in line with other research, we find that economic growth has detrimental effects on the environment. Our results suggest that policymakers should be more cautious in promoting biomass as a clean energy source and that the G7 economies should take advantage of their leading position in innovation to invest more in sustainable practices and investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the effect of financial development and renewable energy consumption on consumption‐based CO2 emissions in Chile while controlling for economic growth and electricity consumption. Based on the aim of the paper, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds with Kripfganz and Schneider's (2018) approximations, fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS), and gradual shift causality tests are applied in this study. The outcomes clearly reveal that while financial development and renewable energy consumption reduce the consumption‐based CO2 emissions in Chile, economic growth and electricity consumption increase consumption‐based carbon emissions. The gradual shift causality test provides consistent results with ARDL, FMOLS, and DOLS estimators. Therefore, policymakers in Chile should dynamically encourage the research and development of low‐carbon technologies and renewable energy investments while imported nonrenewable energy sources level should be targeted, and especially those sectors which are more energy‐intensive and causing to increase in consumption‐based CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, blockchain has been increasingly applied to low‐carbon supply chains, enabling consumers to track production process of low‐carbon products, thereby improving brand awareness and expanding the market. However, do the operation and construction costs of blockchain come at the expense of squeezing resources originally allocated for research and development (R&D) of carbon emission reduction (CER) or reducing firms profits? Given the varying capacities of different types of firms to bear the costs of blockchain in the process of R&D of CER, this paper considers two categories of firms, superior brand firms and inferior brand firms, and studies the impact of blockchain usage on CER and profits. Research shows that the usage of blockchain is not necessarily beneficial to CER and profits enhancement. Consumers' trust and low‐carbon preference, brand awareness, blockchain operation and construction costs, and R&D difficulty of CER are key factors. Superior brand firms can improve CER level and profits through blockchain when R&D difficulty is low and consumers' trust is high or when R&D difficulty is high but consumers' low‐carbon preferences and brand awareness are high. Inferior brand firms can improve CER level and profits through blockchain when R&D difficulty is low and consumers' trust is high or when R&D difficulty is high but brand awareness is low. This study provides strategic insights for brand firms considering the usage of blockchain in their CER initiatives, highlighting the importance of aligning blockchain integration with firm‐specific characteristics and market conditions to achieve both environmental and profit objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, firms are expected to actively respond and take actions to respond to global warming and carbon emissions reduction. As a part of a circular economy, recycling improves waste management and reduces carbon emissions for firms. In the development of firms' strategies, the problem of enhancing the recycling performance becomes a challenge. This paper explores how carbon disclosure influences firms' recycling performance from consumers' purposive inference of firms' recycling behaviors. First, based on a sample of 442 firms' data, we demonstrate that firms' carbon disclosure increases firms' recycling performance. To further explain this effect from the consumer's point of view, two online experiments (N1 = 445 and N2 = 433) show that firms' carbon disclosure increases consumers' recycling willingness, as it acts as an environmental appeal that raises consumers' communal intention inference about firms' recycling and thus enhances consumers' recycling willingness. Furthermore, we find that economic incentives do not increase consumers' recycling willingness. Our study suggests that firms should be cautious in using economic incentives when developing strategies to improve recycling performance and actively improve their carbon disclosures. Carbon disclosure can be used as an environmental appeal to increase consumers' recycling willingness and firms' recycling performance. It is also important to note that these findings have practical implications for governments, policy‐making authorities, and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). The results of our study contribute to the literature on firms' recycling performance in circular economy (CE) and carbon disclosure from a theoretical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments and policymakers worldwide have been setting targets to achieve an ambitious net‐zero emission target by 2050 to tackle the pressing issue of climate change. However, achieving the net‐zero emission target by 2050 depends on the factors determining the transition from traditional fossil fuel energy sources to renewables. In connection with this, policymakers have emphasised the need to transition from a linear to a circular economy. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of the progress towards a circular economy in reducing CO2 emissions and promoting environmental sustainability. To do so, we use annual historical data for a panel of 29 European countries from 2000 to 2020. Using an identification strategy that adopts heteroscedastic‐based instrumental variables and addresses endogeneity issues, we find that progress towards a circular economy significantly improves environmental quality via reducing CO2 emissions. Our findings suggest that business strategies promoting recycling and circular economy practices play an important role in environmental sustainability by reducing emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of environmental innovation on CO2 emissions as well as the moderating role of environmental governance in this relationship. Based on a sample of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange for the period from 2016 to 2020, the findings show that environmental innovation reduces CO2 emissions including Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions. Likewise, our findings are associative of a moderating effect of environmental governance on the environmental innovation‐CO2 emissions nexus. We argue that environmental innovation along with better environmental governance leads to a reduction in CO2 emissions. Our results hold for subsamples of firms with a strong/low environmental governance and ESG performance. Our findings offer important implications for companies and policymakers towards adopting more environmental technologies along with enhancing environmental governance to reduce CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine in this paper how firm value (market‐to‐book ratio, MTB) of U.S. oil and gas sector firms from 2010 to 2020 responds to carbon emissions intensity measures. We investigate three measures comprising total carbon emissions relative to assets, to market value of equity, and to net property, plant, and equipment. Our dynamic panel data approach separates the 82 firms into 35 fracking and 47 non‐fracking companies to address features underlying firm financing during the shale oil revolution. Concerned investors about the companies' large carbon emissions may have pulled out of the sector. These companies may also have overleveraged when expanding into new technologies of oil production or kept larger cash flow ratios. We report lower average carbon emissions for fracking firms, together with the larger size of fracking techniques: mean of assets of $46 billion for fracking versus $12 billion for non‐fracking companies. Using fixed‐effects and system generalized methods of moments (SGMM) models, we find that carbon emissions decrease MTB of fracking firms more than non‐fracking firms. Our dynamic panel approach provides a more accurate measure of the real effect of carbon emissions that is very robust to Tobin's q as alternative measure of firm value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With energy transition becoming an urgent priority for companies worldwide, practitioners and policymakers are urging them to finance climate‐friendly projects. This paper investigates how the issuance of green bonds affects firms' carbon emissions and environmental performance. Our results show that green bond issuance significantly improves firms' overall environmental performance and their capacities to create new environmental technologies and processes. However, green bond issuance has a less clear effect on carbon emissions intensity and requires additional time (one or more years) before being able to improve the emissions intensity. Taken together, our study's findings clearly highlight the importance of green bonds in financing energy transition in the corporate sector and provide evidence to encourage policymakers to strengthen the legal framework relating to their issuance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emissions have been identified as a major cause of global warming and are harmful to the environment. Given the seriousness of climate changes, businesses are encouraged to adopt corporate strategies to improve environmental performance. Staggered boards (or classified boards) are one of the controversial corporate governance devices being employed by corporations that protect managers from the market for corporate control. This paper explores whether staggered boards can be a useful business strategy to improve carbon emissions. Relying on a novel data set in which the presence of a staggered board is identified through advanced machine learning algorithms and textual analysis, we find that staggered boards bring about significantly worse emission performance by 10.67%. Our results corroborate the premise that staggered boards insulate self‐interested managers from market discipline and thus exacerbate agency problems, resulting in more unfavorable outcomes. Further analysis validates the results, that is, propensity score matching, entropy balancing, instrumental‐variable analysis, and generalized method of moments (GMM) dynamic panel data estimation. Importantly, we include firm fixed effects to account for unobserved heterogeneity. Our findings indicate that de‐staggered boards may help improve emission performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments and corporations around the world are increasingly pressured to manage climate‐related business risks and reduce their carbon footprint. Consequently, a growing number of corporations have started implementing internal carbon pricing (ICP) programs, assigning a monetary value to their carbon emissions as a mitigation and adaptation mechanism. This paper explores the motives underlying voluntary ICP adoption and examines whether a firm's exposure to climate‐related risks is a relevant driver of ICP adoption. Using a worldwide sample of firms reporting to the Carbon Disclosure Project between 2016 and 2018, we find that firm‐level climate change exposure is significantly and positively related to the likelihood of ICP adoption. More specifically, the probability of adoption is largely linked to regulatory shocks and opportunity exposure. Moreover, we find that board independence acts as a moderator in the climate change exposure–ICP adoption relation. The findings of this study shed light on the factors contributing to the acceleration in ICP implementation in the context of a coordinated effort between public and private sectors to reduce global emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing studies of emissions reduction focus mainly on the technical potential and abatement costs while overlooking firms' willingness to pay (WTP) for emissions reduction. Yet WTP is a key parameter in a firm's decision to carry out emissions reduction while maximizing its profits. This paper estimates China's manufacturing industry (CMI) firms' maximum WTP for carbon abatement—defined as the cumulative product between the marginal abatement cost and corresponding abatement potential—using a large sample from a data envelopment analysis model. The results show that (a) the maximum WTP is significantly constrained by an isocost carbon abatement curve at RMB 8.65 million for the representative CMI firm; (b) the representative firms' WTP for carbon abatement varies among the sub‐sectors; and (c) profitability and production scales both positively affect firms' WTP for carbon abatement in all of CMI sub‐sectors, while innovation investment has a negative effect. The results suggest that the cost of carbon reduction technology for CMI firms should be below RMB 8.65 million for a representative CMI firm. The government should formulate subsidies or tax relief policies to help firms reduce their abatement costs. Further, the division of tasks in different sub‐sectors, between carbon emissions reduction on the one hand, and ongoing innovation on the other, should be clearly distinguished by policy bias to promote the transformation of industrial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving environmental quality across South Asia has become one of the utmost important policy agendas of the concerned governments. The susceptibility of the majority of the South Asian countries to multifaceted climate change adversities has motivated the need to identify the factors that can function to ensure environmental sustainability across South Asia. Although several studies have highlighted the importance of globalization and cleaner energy use in tackling the environmental degradaton issues of the South Asian countries, very little is known regarding the impacts of regional trade and renewable energy transition in this regard. Hence, this paper aims to scrutinize the effects of enhancing intra‐regional trade integration and undergoing renewable energy transition on per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the context of six South Asian nations between 1990 and 2016. The results from the recently developed cross‐sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag regression approach, accounting for cross‐sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity issues, reveal that facilitating trade among the South Asian neighbors reduces carbon emissions in both the short and long run. Moreover, enhancing the share of renewable energy in the aggregate energy consumption figures is also found to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in both the short and long run. Furthermore, both regional trade integration and renewable energy transition are found to jointly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in South Asia. The results also authenticate the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis, while financial development and urbanization are found to boost carbon dioxide emissions only in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable supply chain (SSC) has received significant attention worldwide in the last few years because it integrates sustainability dimensions into its process. Recent artificial intelligence (AI)‐based advancements in technology make it possible to overcome many problems associated with supply chain (SC) networks. The current study was performed to explore the role of AI in establishing an SSC. The research contribution in the field of AI and SSC was examined through a systematic literature review. A total of 353 articles were gathered from the Scopus database in the selected research field. A big data‐based approach, namely, structural topic modelling (STM), was applied to generate emerging thematic topics from shortlisted articles of AI in SSC. Moreover, using R package, a bibliometric analysis was conducted to examine the research trends in the field of AI in SSC. The research trends were then analysed, with generated thematic topics discussed. The proposed research framework can help researchers and practitioners to develop an SSC model using AI‐based techniques. Propositions for future research are given and implications are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We hinge on a panel data of 4660 firms across 79 countries and over 15 years to explore how country, industry, and firm effects influence firms' CO2 emissions. Our results show that firm effects are the main factor influencing firms' CO2 emissions (32.8% of the total variance), ahead of industry (30.6%), country (29.3%), or country‐industry effects (4.0%). These results highlight the need to overhaul current public policy baselines that mainly focus on environmental regulation and technological development, for the dissemination of proactive environmental practices within the firm also appears to be—at least—as important to ground a low‐carbon future. Our findings should also permeate the rhetoric of the agents setting business collective beliefs and influencing management training, as well as that of international organizations at the forefront of the crusade for decarbonization. By contrast, if the misleading idea of marginal firm effects entrenches in our set of beliefs, it could become a self‐fulfilling prophecy in the normative system under which policymaking and organizational behavior unfold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voluntary carbon offsetting (VCO) programmes are an initiative to reduce global carbon emissions and are increasing in popularity among companies, despite controversies and debates regarding the effect of offsetting activities on carbon emissions. VCO has become an important aspect of the sustainability and marketing strategies of companies. Few studies have researched the consumer aspect of companies using carbon offsetting in marketing. This study explores the knowledge, attitudes and behavioural intentions of young Danish consumers towards carbon offsetting. Qualitative interviews with 25 young Danish consumers were conducted based on the theory of planned behaviour, which was used as a conceptual framework. The results of the study indicate that the young consumers have little knowledge of VCO and perceive the topic as complicated and difficult. This contributes to distrust and negative perceptions of carbon offsetting programmes. In conclusion, guidance for companies to communicate carbon offsetting programmes is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We augment the existing knowledge on the role of economic complexity in the environment and sustainable development debate by examining the effect of economic complexity on environmental degradation (measured by ecological footprint, CO2 emissions, N2O emissions and greenhouse gas emissions) contingent on income, using data from 35 OECD countries between 1998 and 2017. With the fixed effects model estimator, we find that income facilitates economic complexity to mitigate ecological footprint, CO2 emissions, N2O emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. Also, we fit a partial linear functional‐coefficient model to find that income influences economic complexity to exert a nonlinear effect on ecological footprint, CO2 emissions, N2O emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. We find that economic complexity leads to an increase in ecological footprint, CO2 emissions, N2O emissions and greenhouse gas emissions at lower income levels but gradually dampens them as income rises. Finally, by applying the Method of Moments Quantile regression to control for distributional heterogeneity, we also find that the mitigating effect of economic complexity on ecological footprint, CO2 emissions, N2O emissions and greenhouse gas emissions is transmitted through income across quantiles. The policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International oil companies play a central role in the transition towards a low‐carbon economy. These companies have the leadership and influence to advance technological alternatives or sustain the current dependence on fossil fuels. This article aims to analyse the decarbonisation strategies that European oil companies are performing in the wake of climate change. A document analysis was integrated with carbon emission data from 10 European international oil companies and uncovered the four main strategies adopted by companies: sustained carbon dependence, carbon emissions compensation, carbon emissions mitigation and carbon independence. The results indicate that companies have adopted variable levels of action, despite their overlapping discourse on climate mitigation, with only one of the analysed firms performing a transition away from fossil fuels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the quality of carbon reporting (QCR) by New Zealand (NZ) firms and its changes over time. It also explores the impact of QCR on the market reputation of firms. Using a sample of 300 company‐year observations between 2015 and 2020 from top listed firms of NZ, the study develops a 14‐item QCR index. The study finds that the company‐level QCR reporting by NZ firms overall is not praiseworthy, as firms need to improve QCR in many aspects (both in‐house efforts as well as external reporting). Although QCR has increased over time, firms' QCR efforts cannot be treated completely authentic. Majority of firms in NZ have disclosed unaudited carbon information to investors and other stakeholders. Additionally, our study finds that QCR positively affects the market reputations of firms, and the market behaves accordingly. Specifically, firms' organic carbon efforts are paid‐off (through increased market reputation) by the market players and cosmetic/decoupled behaviour is penalised (through decreased market reputation). This study is the first on QCR reporting using a sample of NZ firms and an account of their initiatives towards the carbon emission reduction initiative and related disclosures. The study's findings have policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether environmental‐related innovation moderates the association between environmental and financial performance measured respectively as carbon emissions and return on assets (ROA). The sample comprises 119 companies subject to Australia's National Greenhouse Energy Reporting Act (NGER) for the period 2009–2017. The results show that environmental innovation positively moderates the relationship between environmental performance and financial performance. The findings also imply that the impact of environmental innovation in improving environmental performance is observable with a 1‐year lag. The results are robust to the alternative financial performance measures of Tobin's Q and Altman's Z score. The findings have important implications for company managers and policymakers and provide useful information on innovation's role in enhancing environmental and financial performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between the adoption of blockchain technology and environmental efficiency by using a sample of US firms over the 2015–2019 period. Our results indicate that the adoption of blockchain technology is positively and significantly associated with environmental efficiency, suggesting that blockchain improves environmental sustainability. In further analyses, we determine that the relationship between blockchain and environmental efficiency is more pronounced for firms in financial and technological industries than for those in other industries. Our findings are also robust to other methods that control for endogeneity, including difference in difference regressions and propensity score matching. Overall, we provide empirical evidence to incentivize business leaders and policymakers to adopt innovative technologies, such as blockchain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the literature by investigating the effect of environmental degradation on foreign direct investment (FDI) using comprehensive panel data from 103 developing countries between 1970 and 2019. In this study, nine variables, namely, CO2 emissions, total greenhouse gas emissions, methane emissions, PM2.5, nitrous oxide emissions, ecological footprint of consumption, ecological footprint of production, total area (ecological footprint), and total biocapacity, were used to measure environmental degradation/sustainability. Using Lewbel's two‐stage least squares to control endogeneity issues, the result from the aggregated sample indicates that while CO2 emissions significantly reduce FDI, the remaining environmental degradation variables stimulate FDI. Further analysis reveals that, generally, environmental degradation boosts FDI flows to low and lower‐middle income countries while reducing FDI flows to upper‐middle income countries. The regional analysis also shows that environmental degradation generally reduces FDI flows to Europe and Central Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa regions while stimulating FDI flows to South Asia, Sub‐Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Environmental degradation was found to have a neutral effect on FDI flows to East Asia and the Pacific. These results are robust to alternative econometric techniques. The policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core of this study is to empirically evaluate the environmental strategy in terms of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) from the perspectives of both managers and investors. The study incorporates the Porter hypothesis and the balanced scorecard (BSC) assumptions to analyze data from 17 international petroleum companies for the period 2005q1–2016q4 by linking the strategy map and BSC to the actual key performance indicators (KPIs). Panel dynamic regression analysis is employed to evaluate the said strategy for both the short and the long terms. The results clearly indicate that the environmental strategy has a significant and positive impact on the environmental performance not only in the short term but also in the long term. This study contributes to the BSC studies on this topic by presenting a perspective of the strategy in the form of a mathematical model that can be statistically testable for both the short and the long terms, thereby providing a guideline to managers for strategy evaluation purposes, optimization of resource allocation, and improvements in both the environmental and financial performances in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether a country's level of democracy is associated with greenhouse gas emission intensity of corporations and if national culture influences this association. Using cross‐country evidence, we find that firms operating in countries with strong democratic institutions are negatively associated with carbon emission intensity controlling for other country‐level variables. Democracy also moderates the positive effect of individualistic cultures on greenhouse gas emission intensity, whereas countries with high uncertainty avoidance and indulgence are associated with high emissions despite high democratic scores. That is, while the effects of democracy and culture on greenhouse gas emission intensity supplement each other, culture shapes a firm's strategy on environmental matters to a greater extent than democracy. The results are robust to alternative variable measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tourism sector is growing rapidly, and this has greatly stimulated economic growth around the world; however, the environmental degradation that this implies cannot be ignored. In order to achieve sustainable tourism, it is important to study the link between tourism and environmental quality. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between tourism and CO2 emissions from 1995 to 2018 in a sample of 20 Latin American countries. Econometric techniques of cointegration and causality were used to evaluate the relationship between these variables. To test the consistency of cointegration vectors, the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOSL) model was applied for individual countries and the panel dynamic ordinary least squares (PDOLS) model for groups of countries. The results show that tourism revenues have a negative effect on the global panel and upper‐middle‐income countries (UMICs). This result is statistically significant. However, as tourism revenues increase, they start to have a positive and significant effect on CO2 emissions per capita, globally and in UMICs. These results, which are contrary to the theory, form a U shape, which does not support the ecological Kuznets curve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest IPCC report foreshadows a far gloomier picture of climate change consequences than previously held by demonstrating how avoiding environmental damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has "no documented historic precedent." One of the options to address climate change is adoption of mitigation strategies to reduce carbon emissions on national, sectoral, and corporate levels. This research analyzes mitigation responses by organizations facing institutional and stakeholder pressures while dealing with the risk and opportunities presented by climate change. Our research indicates that different types of institutional pressures—coercive, normative, and mimetic—lead to different and, in certain situations, more active responses from companies. We find that coercive pressures are about equal or more effective than normative or mimetic pressures for adoption of mitigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the extent to which cross‐sectional differences in carbon dioxide emissions matter for future valuations of European firms regulated under the European Union Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Counterintuitively, we find that firm‐level emissions share a robust concave relationship with future market valuations. Initially, market valuations increase in emissions potentially because emissions are considered essential for normal production processes; however, the valuation premium decreases and becomes negative beyond a threshold of emissions due to looming regulatory and transition risks. Firms in the lower quartile of emissions trade at an average premium of 2.42%, against a 20.78% discount in the upper quartile (the peak is 3.85%). Importantly, the concave relationship obtains only in smaller firms with lower analyst coverage and lower institutional ownership, and the predictive power of emissions is limited to firms with no reported investments in clean technology. Therefore, policymakers might consider promoting the development and diffusion of green technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the issue of greenwashing among corporate high emitters subject to government scrutiny. To do so, we investigate the relationship between the actual environmental performance, measured as carbon emissions, of companies subject to the Australian National Greenhouse Energy Reporting Act 2007 (NGER) and their climate‐related voluntary disclosures. To measure climate‐related disclosure, we construct a climate‐related disclosure index based on four prominent frameworks and score corporate report content against that Index. Using a sample of 150 companies with NGER emissions data for Years 2016 and 2017, a period that precedes the issuance of recommendations for disclosure by the Task Force on Climate‐Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), our regression results show a disappointingly low level of climate‐related disclosure by most companies. We also find a negative relationship between climate‐related disclosure and 1‐year lagged environmental performance among companies exhibiting a year‐on‐year rise in carbon emissions. That is, our findings provide evidence of potential greenwashing by poor environmental performers, presumably to change negative perceptions by stakeholders, as predicted by socio‐political theories. In contrast, we find no evidence of greenwashing among companies experiencing a year‐on‐year decrease in emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]