The influence of board committee structures on voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions: Australian evidence

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the impact of having risk management committees at the board level on the voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Australia. There is no impact of having a standalone risk management committee on the levels of voluntary disclosure of GHG emissions. However, when firms have combined audit and risk management committees the level of disclosure of GHG emissions is lower and this result holds in multivariate models that control for a number of firm characteristics including corporate governance. Further, we find that firms voluntarily disclosing higher quality information on GHG emissions experience reduced stock price volatility and improved stock market liquidity.