Twentieth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Studies in the business literature have shown that corporate board of director gender diversity positively affects business decision-making and governance, and potentially firm valuation. We examine gender diversity in the executive rank and all employees, in addition to board of directors, and investigate potential effects of these various dimensions of gender diversity on, less studied, corporate environmental performance. Using a novel dataset of quarterly ESG and financial performance metrics, we find that gender diversity among all employees positively impacts environmental performance and is robust to several controls. By contrast, the impact of gender diversity at the board of directors and executive rank varies across business sector, geographical region, and firm size.