The influence of boards of directors on environmental disclosure

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to verify the influence of the characteristics of boards of directors on the level of environmental disclosure by Brazilian companies. The board is one of the main mechanisms of corporate governance and its characteristics can influence the level of environmental disclosure. Design/methodology/approach -The study used a sample of 152 companies listed on the São Paulo stock exchange, the BM&FBovespa. The level of environmental information was obtained by conducting a content analysis of company sustainability reports and websites. The generalized additive models based on negative binomial distribution were used to verify the influence of the characteristics of boards on environmental disclosure. Findings -The results indicate that the number of independent board members had statistical significance, suggesting that board independence can improve the control of the administration and encourage greater environmental disclosure. The age variables showed that environmental disclosure increased on boards with average age up to 60 and then decreased. Originality/value -It is expected that this study will contribute to the literature on corporate governance promotion by producing empiric data about the impacts of the characteristics of boards of directors on the level of environmental disclosure of companies that operate in a country with an emerging economy, Brazil. Another contribution may be related to the process of choosing board members because a board of directors must be composed of members with various characteristics to reduce the asymmetry of information and improve a company's environmental disclosure policies.

Factors affecting corporate environmental disclosure in emerging markets: The role of corporate governance structures

“…Furthermore, by collecting the data of this study from the Jordanian context, it also shifts the focus on CG‐to‐CED studies to emerging economies, specifically to the MENA economies, which have been much neglected in previous studies of a similar nature (Ashfaq & Rui, 2019). By doing so, this study responds to the recent calls to help those developing countries in the assessment of the effectiveness of their CG implementation along with advancing well‐functioning CED activities (Fernandes et al, 2019; Gerged, Beddewela, et al, 2020). Additionally, this research study aims to investigate the nature of the CG–CED nexus post the implementation of the 2009 CG reforms in Jordan from 2010 to 2014.…”

“…Although some researchers have recently sought to examine the impact of CG on CED, mainly in the context of developed countries (e.g., Giannarakis et al, 2019; Khaireddine, Salhi, Aljabr, & Jarboui, 2020; Saha & Kabra, 2020), the power of different structures of CG on CED has not been extensively examined, specifically in the developing settings (Fernandes, Bornia, & Nakamura, 2019). For example, Giannarakis et al (2019) indicate that the association between CG and CED is a context specific, primarily linked to the regulatory environment.…”

Trend and relationship between environmental accounting disclosure and environmental performance for mining companies listed in China

“…Board characteristics cannot be underscored when it comes to internal factors that influence environmental accounting information disclosure (Osazuwa et al 2016 ; Passetti et al 2018 ). Board characteristics that are identified as determinants of environmental information disclosure in the mining companies are the size of the board (Vogt et al 2017 ; Osazuwa et al 2016 ; García‐Sánchez and Martínez‐Ferrero 2018 ), the proportion of independent directors (García‐Sánchez and Martínez‐Ferrero 2018 ; Cucari et al 2018 ), establishment of professional committees (Osazuwa et al 2016 ), the female representation of the board (Elmagrhi et al 2019 ) CEO duality (Cucari et al 2018 ), and age range of board members (Fernandes et al 2019 ).…”

Audit Committee Characteristics and Environmental Disclosure Quality Among Malaysian Environmentally Sensitive Industries

“…It is a guideline of Quality Management and Environment Management which is the system that refers to the International Standard that can assists an association by enhancing its environmental performance and empower the components of the environmental management system to be coordinated into the centre of business process. In addition, previous study by Fernandes et al (2018) stated that ED has become an important tool that provides information to the investors regarding the environmental investment and their activities in the companies.…”