Search results

This study aims to examine whether the sustainability committee, a specialized governance mechanism for environmental and social issues, is related to environmental performance. Specifically, the authors consider the presence and effectiveness of the sustainability committee.

Using a sample of Australian firms (2002–2016), the presence of a sustainability committee and sustainability committee effectiveness (consisting of 12 sustainability committee characteristics) are examined. Firms’ environmental performance is measured by Thomson Reuters Asset4 ratings.

The authors confirm prior findings of a positive relationship between the presence of a sustainability committee and the firm’s environmental performance. More importantly, sustainability committee effectiveness is found to be positively associated with environmental performance, indicating the active role that the composition and function of the sustainability committee plays in enhancing environmental performance.

The findings are of interest to directors and managers who are interested in improving firms’ environmental performance, in addition to investors and regulators who are concerned about environmental performance.

This study meaningfully expands the extant literature that studies the sustainability committee in at least three ways. First, the authors evidence the effect of an unexplored dimension of committee heterogeneity (sustainability committee effectiveness) by hand-collecting detailed information of sustainability committee members. Second, the authors distinguish from prior studies, in that the authors test the direct relationship between sustainability committee effectiveness and environmental performance. Third, by adopting different robustness tests of endogeneity along with sampling firms in various industries over 15 years, the authors offer more compelling and more comprehensive evidence in this regard. Broadly, the authors enrich the literature on corporate governance and environmental performance.

Despite the well-recognized importance of recycled water, the study of industry-peer pressure on recycled water is relatively new. This study investigates how organizations experience and react to industry-peer pressure to set recycled water targets. Additionally, this study investigates the role of board chairs involved in sustainability committees in contributing to responses to industry-peer pressure.

Using Eviews 12, this study employed a pooled logistic regression model to analyze data from 1,346 firms on Taiwan and Taipei exchanges (2017–2020).

The findings revealed that frequency-based imitation drives recycled water target-setting diffusion. However, there is no direct relationship between outcome-based imitation and recycled water target-setting. Notably, outcome-based imitation drives the adoption of recycled water target-setting of firms with board-chair membership in sustainability committees.

This study faces certain data limitations. First, this study primarily focuses on water recycling. Future research could explore other ways to reduce water usage, such as using water-efficient equipment. Second, this study gathered information solely on the presence or absence of a board chairperson on the sustainability committee. Future researchers could explore the impact of the composition of sustainability committee on recycled water target-setting. Lastly, the sample used in this study is restricted to Taiwan's corporations that existed during 2017–2020. Future researchers may consider adopting a longitudinal design in other economies to address this limitation.

The findings of this study offer several guidelines and implications for recycled water target-setting and the composition of sustainability committees. It responds to an urgent call for solutions to water shortages when pressure from governments and nongovernmental organizations is relatively absent. The number of industry peers that have already set recycled water targets is indispensable for motivating firms to set their own recycled water targets. In terms of insufficient water-related regulatory pressure and normative pressure, this study found evidence suggesting that the direct motivation for setting recycled water targets stems from mimetic pressures via frequency-based imitation. The evidence in this study suggests that policymakers should require companies to disclose their peers’ recycled water target information, as doing so serves as an alternative means to achieving SDG 6.3.

Recycled water target-setting might be challenging. Water recycling practices may face strong resistance and require substantial additional resources (Zhang and Tang, 2019; Gao et al., 2019; Gu et al., 2023). Therefore, this study suggests that firms should ensure the mindfulness of board members in promoting the welfare of the natural environment when making recycled water target-setting decisions. To reap the second-mover advantage, firms must consider the conditions in which board members can more effectively play their role. Corporations may help their chairpersons in setting recycled water targets by recruiting them as members of sustainability committees. Meanwhile, chairpersons tend to activate accurate mental models when the water conservation performance of pioneering industry peers is strong enough to indicate the potential benefits of adopting recycled water target-setting. Investors’ and stakeholders’ understanding of how the composition of sustainability committees is related to recycled water target-setting may help to identify the potential drivers of firms’ water responsibility. Investors and stakeholders should distinguish firms in terms of the board chair’s membership of their sustainability committee and focus on water-use reduction outcomes in the industry. This study provides insights into circumstances whereby chairpersons help to restore the water ecosystem.

This study explains how frequency-based and outcome-based imitation are two prominent mechanisms underlying the industry-peer pressure concerning recycled water target-setting. Moreover, this study fills literature gaps related to the moderating roles of board-chair membership in sustainability committees concerning industry-peer pressure on recycled water target-setting.

Higher education institutions increasingly have gained momentum in integrating sustainability into university curricula. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the approval, implementation and management process of the new university-wide, general education requirement in sustainability at the University of Vermont (UVM). The intent is to provide a case study to inform other institutions seeking to create similar university-wide sustainability requirements.

The authors applied a process framework focused on institutional dynamics and values to analyze UVM’s success in instituting a sustainability requirement across the curriculum. These two frameworks can provide a more general application of this case study to other institutional contexts.

The case study suggests that in the context of a diverse disciplinary and administrative environment at a university, the strategic unfolding, approval and implementation of UVM’s university-wide, general education sustainability requirement can provide a general model for other universities seeking to embed sustainability across the curriculum.

It is uncommon for research universities with multiple professional schools to offer a university-wide requirement in sustainability. This case study analyzes the creation of a sustainability requirement at UVM by using a process framework to organize the complex, multi-stakeholder activities and events that eventually resulted in a successful curricular change. Thus, it is potentially instructive for institutions seeking to integrate a learning outcomes-based sustainability requirement into a university curriculum because it is generalizable to other institutions and pushes forward our understanding of institutional change.

This study aims to examine the association between corporate governance and sustainability reporting quality of listed firms in Nigeria.

The authors measure corporate governance using board governance variables (board size, board independence, board gender diversity and board expertise) and audit committee attributes (audit committee size, audit expertise and audit meeting). The authors measured sustainability reporting quality using a scoring system, which ranges between 0 and 4. The highest score is achieved when sustainability reporting is independently assured by an audit firm. The lowest score refers to the absence of sustainability reporting. The study emphasizes 120 listed firms on Nigeria Stock Exchange using the ordered logistic regression technique.

The results indicate that board governance variables (board size, board gender diversity and board expertise) and audit committee attributes (audit committee size, audit expertise and audit meeting) are significantly associated with sustainability reporting quality. Additional analysis reveals that external assurance contributes to the quality of sustainability reporting through corporate governance characteristics.

This study is restricted to a single country. Future studies should consider a cross-country study, which may help to establish a comparative analysis. Likewise, the future study could consider other regression techniques using a continuous measurement of the global reporting initiative in measuring sustainability reporting quality.

This study’s findings have important implications for policymakers and practitioners, especially the corporate executives and top management. Companies are encouraged to restructure their board to enhance better monitoring and support towards better sustainability reporting.

Disclosure on sustainability reporting helps corporate organizations advance the issues of sustainability both nationally and globally.

This current study adds to accounting literature by examining how corporate governance contributes to sustainability reporting practices within the Nigerian context. Drawing from the result, the study provides strong interconnectivity between the corporate board and audit committee in driving sustainability reporting quality within an organizational context.

This study aims to analyse the role of persistence in the assessments carried out by sustainability agencies in the interaction between sustainability committee characteristics, sustainability strategies and performance.

The authors accessed a sample of European sustainable multinational and transnational companies (EMNs) for the period 2008–2017 from RobecoSAM universe. Using a set of simultaneous equation models, the authors test the effect of the sustainability committee on sustainability performance considering the sustainability strategy as a mediating element. Moreover, the authors analysed if the persistent assessment of sustainability agencies conditions the previous interaction.

Persistence of the sustainability assessment performed by an external agency is necessary to support the sustainability strategy and the sustainability committee, legitimating an organization in its institutional context.

This study provides practitioners with relevant insights into the identification of the sustainability strategy followed by an EMN and the effects associated with it can be useful for social and economic agents in decision-making processes.

A persistent assessment could be a signal over time of the evolution of organizations, reinforcing the monitoring mechanisms. It is a stimulus to EMNs as they obtain both an indicator of their levels of performance and public recognition.

The lack of similarity in the levels of sustainable performance observed among companies can be explained by the persistence, which is an omitted variable in previous studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of sustainability governance through the unfolding hybridisation process between corporate governance and corporate social responsibility and the implications of this for understanding patterns in sustainability reporting over time.

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill incident is an extreme case study undertaken to examine its implications on the organisational legitimacy of British Petroleum (BP) and the latter’s response to the incident and beyond. The paper draws on Suchman’s legitimacy framework (1995) to understand sustainability governance as an organisational practice that evolved post the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to manage BP’s legitimacy. It draws on archival records and documentation from 2008 to 2017, as key sources for data collection, using interrogation by NVivo software.

Sustainability governance is a sound practice that was socially constructed to manage the re-legitimatisation process following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It is characterised by broadness (the interplay between the corporate governance and corporate social responsibility disciplines), dynamic (developing the tactics to repair and maintain legitimacy), agility (conforming to the accountability for socially responsible investment and ensuring steps towards geopolitically responsible investment) and interdependence (reflecting composition and interactions).

This paper has practical implications for organisations, in terms of sustainability governance’s constitution, mechanism and characteristics.

This paper has implications not only for organisations, in terms of sustainability governance’s characteristics, but also for policy-makers, regulators and accounting education. However, the present paper’s insights are achieved through an in-depth and longitudinal case study.

This paper has problematized the concept of sustainability governance and elaborated its evolution (the emergence, enactment, deployment and interplay) process. The sustainability governance showed an otherwise organisational response that moves our understanding of the deployment of disclosure for complex organisational change as a way to discredit events.

In recent times, stakeholders have called on corporate organizations especially those charged with governance to embrace full disclosure on non-financial issues, especially sustainability reporting. Based on this premise, this study aims to examine the influence of corporate board and assurance on sustainability reporting practices (SRP) of selected 80 firms from 8 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

To measure the corporate board, the authors use both board variables and audit committee variables. Also, the authors adapted the sustainability score model as used by previous authors in the field of sustainability disclosure to measure SRPs. The analysis was done using both ordered logistic regression and probit regression models.

The results show that the combination of board corporate and assurance has a positive and significant impact on the sustainability reporting practice of selected firms in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study places emphasis on the need for strong collaboration between the corporate board and external assurance in evaluating and enhancing the quality of sustainability disclosure.

The study bridged the gap in the literature in the area of corporate board, assurance and SRP of corporate firms which has received little attention within sub-Saharan Africa.

This study aims to examine whether firms that appear to exhibit high sustainable outputs are more likely to pay higher audit fees than firms without such outputs.

The sustainability outputs are measured using a sustainable product portfolio consisting of four products: clean energy products, eco-design products (EDP), environmental products (EP) and sustainable building projects (SBP). The audit fee variable is measured by the natural logarithm of the total amount of audit fees. The study tests two models of the association between these outputs and audit fees; Model 1 tests this association in the absence of the moderating variable (sustainability committee), and Model 2 tests the association in the presence of the moderating variable.

An analysis of data on 261 European firms from the Refinitiv Eikon database from 2010 to 2019 shows that high sustainability outputs are significantly and positively associated with audit fees. More importantly, this association is moderated by the presence of a board-level sustainability committee, suggesting that this type of committee reflects a factor considered by auditors in their audit risk assessment practices. The findings indicate that in Model 1, one (EP) out of four variables has a significant and positive association with audit fees, while in Model 2 and in the presence of sustainability committee, two variables (EP and EDP) have a significant and negative association with audit fees. However, the robust analysis shows that three variables (EP, EDP and SBP) have significant and negative associations with audit fees.

The study findings have important implications for policymakers, auditors and firms’ managers. For policymakers, the findings provide support for the argument that sustainable attitudes incentivise firms to manage sustainable product profiles more effectively. As such, policymakers should incentivise firms to establish a sustainability committee and regulate its role and responsibilities. Auditors should coordinate with the sustainability committee to facilitate audit efforts and reduce audit fees.

Understanding the relationship between sustainable products and audit fees will allow firms to improve their portfolio of sustainable products. In addition, other social implications of this study relate to improving relationships with society by establishing a sustainability committee that is responsible to communicate with that society.

The results support the argument that firms should manage sustainable product portfolios more effectively. In addition, the results of the study highlight the importance of a new variable as a moderator, the sustainability committee, which has not been examined before.

This project aims to examine interpersonal interactions at the committee level that lead to shared governance of a college's environmental responsibilities. It demonstrates the important role shared governance plays in integrating sustainability into a liberal arts college.

This paper combines participant observation and case study techniques. From September 2010 to October 2012, the author participated in 46 meetings and conducted 14 interviews with key informants.

Key challenges to efficiency and effectiveness of the shared governance process differ depending on whether the committee was involved in visioning or validation work. Key drivers included mid-level leadership, a commitment to the mandate, and a willingness to engage in an ongoing process of shared understanding.

This study's findings are limited insofar as inaccuracies may arise due to respondents' poor recall, the interviewer's questions, if the interviewee gives the interviewer what she wants to hear, and if events observed may have proceeded differently because it was being observed.

This study provides insight into the process of change leading up to implementation of sustainability practices. It highlights strategic and value convergence, provides a clear example of mid-level leadership driving change through an emergent process, and which required commitment to the original mandate, the ongoing ability to create shared understanding, and the ability of faculty and administrators to move from independent to consultative action.

Sustainability in higher education often begins with shared governance in a committee. However, little research on shared governance exists at the committee level, and none focuses on the unique challenge of systemic change for sustainability. This project begins to fill that gap.

The intensity of carbon emissions has led to the serious problem of global warming, and the consequences in terms of climatic disasters are gaining increasing attention worldwide. As the energy sector is responsible for most global emissions, developing clean energy is crucial to combat climate change. This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and renewable energy (RE) consumption and explore the interaction between RE production and RE use.

The study adopts an econometric framework of a panel model, followed by the robustness check using alternative methods, including logit regressions. The bivariate probit model is used to analyze the interaction between the decision to use and the decision to produce RE. The analysis is based on a sample of 3,896 firms covering 45 countries worldwide.

The results reveal that appropriate governance mechanisms positively impact RE consumption. These include the existence of a sustainability committee; environmental, social and governance-based compensation policy; financial performance-based compensation; sustainability external audit; transparency; board gender diversity; and board independence. Firms with appropriate governance mechanisms are more likely to produce and use RE than others. Finally, while RE use positively impacts firm value and environmental performance, the authors find no significant effect on current profitability.

This study goes beyond previous research by exploring the impact of multiple governance mechanisms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first study examining the relationship between RE use and firm value. Overall, the findings suggest that RE transition requires, first of all, establishing appropriate governance mechanisms within companies.