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This study aims to examine whether there exists any relationship between corporate biodiversity reporting decision (CBRD) and corporate environmental performance (CEP).

The primary sample contains 442 firm-year observations over a period of 13 years (2008–2020) for 34 listed Finnish companies. Based on both legitimacy theory and voluntary disclosure theory, 2 logit regression models are estimated to test the CBRD–CEP nexus. CBRD is a dichotomous variable. Three proxies for CEP, namely propensity to emit greenhouse gas (GHG), propensity to consume water and propensity to generate waste are employed.

This study finds that firms having higher propensity to consume water and generate waste are inclined to release biodiversity-related information. The findings support legitimacy theory suggesting that firms with inferior environmental performance may decide on reporting biodiversity information for legitimation purpose.

The study uses Finnish data and hence, the results may lack in generalizability to other national contexts.

The results of this study should be valuable to policy makers for formulating mandatory biodiversity reporting standards to ensure disclosure of standard, extensive and authentic biodiversity-related information by companies. The results should also be valuable to corporate managers and eco-friendly investors.

Corporate biodiversity reporting (CBR) is an under-researched area of environmental accounting literature. Using the Finnish context, this paper extends the existing literature by investigating whether any association exists between CBRD and CEP, which has not been examined before.

The purpose of this study is to attempt to empirically examine the impact of disaggregate, eco-efficiency-based measures of corporate environmental performance (CEP) on corporate financial performance (CFP) of Indian companies. Further, recent theories contending a bidirectional causality between them is also explored.

Secondary data of 224 Indian S&P 500 companies from 2002 to 2011 are used to run panel data regression models for examining the impact of CEP measures on accounting-based CFP measures.

The empirical results are statistically significant and provide evidence for a positive association of eco-efficiency-based CEP metrics on CFP metrics, thereby supporting Porter's win–win hypothesis. Further, the results evidence a positive bi-directional causality between CEP and CFP for one period time lag signalling possibility of mutual reinforcement in CEP–CFP relationship.

The study has used data for the period 2002–2011 and eco-efficiency metrics – energy, water and material efficiencies due to availability.

The results have implications to both corporate managers as well as policymakers across all industries for emphasizing on eco-efficiency-based (proactive) environmental sustainability initiatives to enhance both financial and environmental bottom lines.

The study contributes to scarce empirical literature analysing the impact of CEP on financial performance. To the best of authors's knowledge, event studies, portfolio studies and perceptual data-based empirical studies exist in India. This study is unique in that it examines long run effect of eco-efficiency-based CEP metrics which is pertinent in a rapidly growing emerging market – India, where, eco-efficiency is considered quintessential for sustainable development.

The banking industry plays a key role in society because of its role as a financial intermediary. Today’s banks are being asked to endorse environmental objectives, and recent studies have shown that large banks with strong financial performance are more likely to engage in environmental actions. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between corporate financial performance (CFP) and corporate environmental performance (CEP).

The authors focused on the French banking sector, using the data from a sample consisting of 191 observations covering 68 banks from 2008 to 2011. The environmental scores from the Vigeo database were the proxy measures for the extent to which banks engage in environmental actions. A panel regression model was employed for this study.

The findings show that high CFP was associated with high CEP. The findings also reveal that CFP and CEP may strengthen each other, suggesting a complex bidirectional relationship.

While many studies have examined whether it pays to be green, thus focusing on the causal relationship from CEP to CFP, few have considered that the causal direction might be reversed, from CFP to CEP. Furthermore, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to analyze the CFP-CEP relationship using French bank data.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the significance of the link between corporate environmental and financial performance in order to show managers how an adequate management of environmental factors could contribute to the financial success of the firm.

The paper analyses the environmental and financial performance of a sample of 230 European companies. Under the stakeholder approach, the commitment to environmental performance is analysed and linked with the firms' financial improvement. The paper proposes a partial least squares model (PLS) for measuring corporate environmental and financial performance that seems to be the first time which has been applied in the field.

The results support the idea that enterprises which obtained higher rates of environmental performance show better financial performance levels in the future.

The lack of a long series of environmental performance data for organisations is an obstacle for a broader analysis. This research shows the usefulness of the multivariate modelling for analysing the environmental and financial performance of businesses.

In practice, this research may show managers the need of taking into account the environmental management factors when configuring the strategic policy of the firm and how environmental management can impact to the financial success of the firms.

The use of PLS modelling for measuring environmental and financial performance theoretical concepts and considering a sample of European companies for the empirical analysis.

Industries differ in their environmental impacts, such as emissions, water and energy use, fuel consumption and hazardous wastes, which will have implications for how environmental performance translates to operating performance and market value at company level. By incorporating industry-specific differences of environmental impacts, this paper includes industry-level environmental risk as a moderating factor on the relationship between two indicators of corporate environmental performance (CEP) (management and policy) and corporate financial performance (profitability and market value). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using panel data of US companies across all industries, the paper empirically tests a regression model, which includes an interaction effect representing both the form and strength of dependency of CEP on the environmental risk of the industry. The paper adopts the natural resource based theory to argue that financial returns are a decreasing function of CEP in high environmental impact industries, where environmental spending beyond compliance is costly and there is not much opportunity for consumer orientation.

The results show that environmental management has different impacts on operating performance at high and low environmental risk of the industry (form of relationship) while environmental policy (reporting) has a stronger signal on market premium in industries with low rather than high environmental risk (strength of relationship). Differences in both form and strength of moderating effects are demonstrated.

Further research can introduce other industry-specific moderating factors, such as the disclosure maturity of the industry and the institutionalization of environmental disclosures across boarders in the industries, in order to explore the complexity of the relationship.

The results of the paper are relevant to investors, company managers and a broad group of stakeholders when considering both industry- and company-level environmental risks.

Previous studies have relied on controlling for industry membership. This paper uses an industry-specific environmental variable, environmental risk of the industry, to examine the form and strength of moderating effects.

The concept of corporate environmental performance (CEP) is both used in and discussed with respect to international and regional standards, scientific work and business. Yet, there is no concensus on the meaning of the concept itself and on what elements or components it comprises. Moreover, although there is a discussion on interactions between the different levels of CEP, there is a lack of detailed and rigorous analysis. This paper merges the various insights on CEP and its underlying dimensions and addresses existing interactions between strategic and operational CEP. The interactions can be explained by two organizational theories prevailing in empirical studies namely institutional theory (IT) and the natural resource-based view (NRBV). The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the two theories to explain the different interactions.

First, recent papers that summarized research on the concept of CEP and its existing dimensions are reviewed yielding strategic and operational dimensions of CEP. Second, IT and the NRBV are analyzed in terms of how they are applied to CEP. The results are presented in a matrix which shows the interplay of CEP within its external pressures and strategic capabilities. Third, 37 empirical studies were analyzed by applying the method of an integrative research review. The review synthesized the theoretical approaches of the studies in their specific context, summarized their findings and categorized them into the theoretical arguments on which they are based.

Most studies are conducted on the pollution prevention level with different forms of institutional mechanisms. The studies are diversified and most positive results are found on that level. The studies analyzed differ widely in their methodological approaches, the measures applied and the theory on which they are based on, which may explain why the results were very heterogeneous.

The authors results should help environmental researchers understand how both dimensions are connected to each other and reveal that a combination of theories is essential when empirically investigating interactions within the construct of CEP. Moreover, the authors show that empirical research on CEP is imbalanced as too much studies concentrate on simple compliance measures for CEP. The authors contribute to the literature by summarizing important empirical work on CEP, classifying them into the matrix of IT and NRBV and showing neglected dimensions of CEP, namely higher strategic integration of environmental aspects into CEP measurements.

The present paper should be of particular interest to researchers investigating CEP both in theory and in terms of practical empirical analysis, as the authors show that both external and internal factors must be considered simultaneously in any evaluation. This may lead to far greater efforts in gathering information and data for future empirical research, but it is essential to do so, in order to obtain sufficient and reliable results that account adequately for the complex nature of CEP. Researchers should especially consider the matrix of IT and NRBV before commencing an empirical investigation, by locating their study in one of the fields of the matrix. This can support the choice of appropriate measurement indicators for the specific context and help focus on important external and internal items.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether corporate environmental performance (CEP) exerts any significant influence on the voluntary external assurance of sustainability reports.

The sample of this study includes 176 firm-year observations covering an eight-year period (2008-2015) for listed Finnish companies that have issued sustainability reports during the sample period. As the dependent variable “voluntary external assurance” is a binary variable, a logistic regression model has been estimated to observe the effect of CEP on the dependent variable. In addition, a number of control variables have also been included in the empirical model.

The results of this study exhibit that Finnish firms with superior environmental performance in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption have their sustainability reports externally assured. Additionally, among the control variables, firm size, leverage and asset age are found to have significant impact on the adoption of voluntary sustainability assurance (VSA). These results are robust, as they do not change substantially when conducting sub-sample analyses.

The literature on VSA is evolving slowly paying very little attention to the association between CEP and VSA. This empirical research aims to extend such scant literature. The results could have important implications to users of environmental information, managers and regulators.

Companies develop and implement environmental initiatives in particular national governance and institutional contexts. The purpose of this paper is to study how the background governance conditions of legal systems, economic policies and national culture enable or impede the relationship between corporate environmental performance (CEP) and lagged corporate financial performance (CFP).

This is an empirical study of 427 MNCs headquartered in 22 different countries. The authors merged data from the SiRi database (generally known as SustainAnalytics now), which contains ratings of stakeholder relations for 427 large corporations with publicly available data from Datastream.

Drawing on the new institutionalism in economics and sociology, the authors show that common-law systems and high economic freedom in a company’s home country tend to strengthen the CEP-CFP link. In addition, the home-country cultural variables of uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and (to a lesser extent) masculinity may impede the deployment of CEP for maximum financial gain at the organizational level. The macrolevel analysis starts to move the field toward an understanding of the particular national governance configurations that provide the most supportive conditions for any CEP-CFP links.

One of the central questions in the field of organizations and the natural environment is about the background conditions that may incentivize and reward firms to be more environmentally responsive. The paper addresses this issue through a nation-level investigation of the background governance conditions that may help or hinder the relationship between CEP and CFP.

This study aims to develop a framework that enables the identification of sustainability factors from industry-specific environmental issues, and it proposes that these factors, in turn, can influence the corporate environmental performance (CEP) of firms in such an industry. It also validates the factor identification aspect of the framework.

The paper starts by reviewing relevant literature extensively and then developing an issue-based environmental sustainability framework to highlight the structural relationship of industry-specific sustainability factors with CEP. By involving 131 participants from academics in Niger Delta, the paper uses exploratory factor analysis techniques to reduce industry-specific sustainability factors from several environmental and socio-economic issues in the Nigerian oil and gas (O&G) industry.

Environmental risk originates from business environmental issues, and it triggers community reaction, which impacts negatively on corporate image. The nature of firm’s strategic responsiveness to these factors determines CEP.

The study draws from the perspectives of academics on environmental issues in Niger Delta to validate the factor identification aspect of the framework. The views of other stakeholders are not included, and hence, it should be applied with caution.

Useful in identifying and managing industry-specific environmental issues, and thus, achieving some sustainable development objectives.

Although most previous studies have focused on generic CEP drivers, this study proposes sustainability factors that can originate from industry-specific environmental issues as crucial drivers of CEP in such an industry. It provides empirical evidence of such credible sustainability factors emerging from the Nigerian O&G industry’s environmental issues.

The relationship between the elements of the triple bottom line (TBL) is a controversial area that is constantly debated in the sustainability literature. This study addresses this debate by testing the relationships between these elements, while considering environmental management accounting (EMA) as a mediating influence.

This paper examines survey responses from upper-level managers from ISO 14001-certified manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX). The hypotheses were tested using a partial least squares approach, and bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals were used to test the significance of the relationships between variables.

The authors found a direct relationship between the TBL elements and the role of EMA and social performance in mediating the relationship between economic performance and environmental performance.

This research also provides new insights into the progress of the social resource-based view (SRBV) theory, where the social element missing from the TBL approach can be found.

The findings of this article imply that it is worthwhile to invest in corporate sustainability because it is thereby possible to simultaneously achieve economic, environmental and social performance, since such elements are truly integrated. In addition, possession of EMA management tools is necessary to enhance the relationships between economic performance and environmental performance. Furthermore, social performance seems to constitute an important bond between both of these, indicating that the social element of the TBL is necessary to achieve truly competitive performance.

This study contributes to the corporate environmental management literature by providing empirical evidence regarding the TBL elements.