Board of Directors Characteristics and Environmental SDGs adoption: A global perspective.

Drivers of environmentally conscious firm behaviour have gained increasing attention over the past decades. Board of Directors (BoD) holds a central role in corporate decision making, and previous empirical evidence suggests that, and its characteristics could influence CSP. This paper contributes to the literature showing first evidence of the effects of BoD on firms’ adoption of environmental SDGs. The examined board of directors’ characteristics are: board size, gender diversity, board independence, and CEO Duality. Logistic and linear regressions on 4,366 listed firms globally highlight that board size, the share of female directors, and the share of independent directors are significant determinants of the support of environmental SDGs. Our results support stakeholder theory expectations that more diverse board members are more likely to consider a broader array of environmentally related issues. These results might be useful to policy makers, investors and corporations in evaluating the effectiveness of corporate governance characteristics in fostering the firm contribution to the 2030 Agenda.