Abstract
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. Therefore, all segments of society must act together to stop the deterioration of the planet and the depletion of its resources. The business sector must play an active role in acting responsibly toward the environment. Given the importance of this issue, major efforts have been made to analyze the environmental performance of the most polluting sectors. In contrast, other sectors that are also of great interest due to their contribution to sustainable development, such as the banking sector, have been overlooked. Notable factors conditioning performance include aspects of corporate governance such as gender diversity. However, the empirical evidence reveals a lack of consensus regarding the influence of women directors on corporate environmental performance. This background motivates the study of the commitment of the banking sector to reducing their environmental impact and the analysis the influence of board gender diversity on environmental performance. Data for the period 2009 to 2018 on 52 banks from the most polluting Western regions were studied using descriptive statistics and fixed effects econometric estimation to test the relationship between a selection of relevant variables. The key conclusions are that banks are committed to protecting the environment and that there are no significant differences between banks’ commitment to the planet on the basis of board gender diversity.
Highlights
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the planet
In addition to appealing to governments to act following the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations has called upon the private sector, civil society, and individuals
environmental score (EnvSc) is the environmental indicator, Gen denotes each of the seven selected gender measures, Ndir refers to the number of directors on the board, CEODual is the measure of CEO duality, CSRCom indicates whether there is a corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee, EnvTra indicates whether there are environmental management training policies, DirBon indicates whether there are bonus policies for responsible practices, SBank is the average number of employees, ηi is the unobservable individual effect, and εit is the random error term for company i in period t
Summary
It is of vital importance, given its role as a cause of global warming This phenomenon is having serious consequences throughout the entire planet, including rising sea levels, the flooding of low-lying coastal areas, extreme weather conditions, and severe difficulties for plants and animals to adapt to the new temperatures, potentially leading to the extinction of some species [1]. In addition to appealing to governments to act following the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations has called upon the private sector, civil society, and individuals This call has been made under the premise that joint action is needed to achieve sustainable global economic development that respects the planet and its resources [3]. An environmental catastrophe is foreseen within 30 years [4]
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