The impact of women’s board representation on environmental sustainability: empirical evidence from US firms

The present study aims to investigate the impact of women leadership on environmental sustainability at the firm level. The women leadership is measured in two forms – the percentage of women representation in the board and number of female members in the board. Similarly, the environmental sustainability at the firm level is measured in five forms – total CO2 emissions, direct CO2 emissions, CO2 intensity, emission score, environmental innovation score and efficient use of resource score. We utilize annual data from 2000 to 2021 on 657 firms from the US and make use of robust panel econometric techniques for the empirical investigation. The estimated results, by accounting endogeneity issue in the models, disclose that the women leadership play a significant role in improving environmental sustainability by lowering CO2 emissions and improving innovations and efficient use of resources at the firm level. Our evidence further indicate in alternative models that both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) have indispensable role in lowering carbon emissions and improving environmental suitability of these selected firms from the US. The results remain consistent for alternative measurements and estimations.