Carbon emissions,corporate governance,and staggered boards

Carbon emissions have been identified as a major cause of global warming and are harmful to the environment. Given the seriousness of climate changes, businesses are encouraged to adopt corporate strategies to improve environmental performance. Staggered boards (or classified boards) are one of the controversial corporate governance devices being employed by corporations that protect managers from the market for corporate control. This paper explores whether staggered boards can be a useful business strategy to improve carbon emissions. Relying on a novel data set in which the presence of a staggered board is identified through advanced machine learning algorithms and textual analysis, we find that staggered boards bring about significantly worse emission performance by 10.67%. Our results corroborate the premise that staggered boards insulate self-interested managers from market discipline and thus exacerbate agency problems, resulting in more unfavorable outcomes. Further analysis validates the results, that is, propensity score matching, entropy balancing, instrumental-variable analysis, and generalized method of moments (GMM) dynamic panel data estimation. Importantly, we include firm fixed effects to account for unobserved heterogeneity. Our findings indicate that de-staggered boards may help improve emission performance.     

Climate Change and Mandatory Carbon Reporting: Impacts on Business Process and Performance

As part of their annual directors' report, UK‐listed companies are now required to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and account publicly for their contributions to climate change. This paper uses this mandatory carbon reporting to explore wider debates about corporate social responsibility and the purpose, practice, and impacts of such non‐financial reporting. Empirically, it combines documentary analysis of the carbon reporting practices of 176 large firms listed in the FTSE100 and/or subject to the UK government's adaptation reporting power with 60 interviews with stakeholders involved in carbon reporting. Firms disclose their emissions in response to financial incentives, social pressure and/or regulatory compulsion. In turn, rationales shape whether and how carbon reporting influences internal business processes and performance. The importance of reporting to the bottom line varies by sector depending on two variables – energy intensity and economic regulator status – yet there is limited evidence that carbon reporting is driving substantial reductions in emissions. Findings suggest reasons for caution about hopes for ‘nudging’ firms to improve their environmental performance and social responsibility through disclosure requirements.     

我国交通运输业的碳排放测度及因素分解

依据IPCC清单指南报告,以能源消耗为对象,计算1995-2008年中国交通运输业的碳排放量,在此基础上分析了人均碳排放量、碳排放强度的变化趋势;然后利用STIRPAT模型,对碳排放量进行因素分解,分析了人口因素(按年龄分为两组)、经济因素对中国交通业碳排放的影响;最后提出了相应的建议。     

Paving the road toward eco-effectiveness: Exploring the link between greenhouse gas emissions and firm performance

Climate change has increasingly attracted business attention over the last decade, focusing particularly on the eco-efficiency debate. The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we contribute to the ongoing debate on the effects of environmental strategies on firm performance. We investigate this relationship by considering the relative greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) as a predictor of the eco-efficiency of firms' environmental strategies. GHG emissions are a direct indicator of the environmental performance and effectively measure the firm's efforts in mitigating the impacts related to its processes and products. Second, we investigate the drivers that lead to an increase in the firm's environmental impact under the conditions of increasing market performance by the firm, therefore paving the road to the concept of eco-effectiveness of corporate environmental strategies. To test our hypotheses, we use a sample of worldwide listed companies derived from the S&P 1200 list. A longitudinal analysis is run through generalized least squares regression models over the period 2004–2016. Results offer evidence of the direct relationship between the level of absolute emissions and market performance of the firm. Therefore, the findings have significant implications on the way we conceptualize corporate environmental sustainability and environmental strategies, shedding new light on the relation between environmental pressures and corporate growth.     

Corporate Carbon and Financial Performance: The Role of Emission Reductions

This article uses econometric techniques to examine the effect of corporate carbon performance on corporate financial performance. I extend the existing literature in this research field by differentiating between two measurement perspectives: carbon performance expressed as annually reported carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission equivalents and improvements in carbon performance over time. Thereby, the article re‐addresses the research question ‘when and how does it pay to be green?’ in the context of carbon emissions and climate change mitigation. Using a nonlinear modeling technique, the findings indicate that it pays to be green for companies with superior carbon performance but not for companies with inferior carbon performance. The results also show that carbon emission mitigation is linearly and significantly positive related to return on sales (ROS) but negatively related to Tobin's q . These contradictory findings help us to understand why – in spite of growing regulatory pressure – companies have been slow to respond with effective action to tackle climate change beyond marginal efficiency improvements that correspond to ‘low‐hanging fruits’. The empirical analysis is based on an unbalanced sample of 7625 firm‐year observations covering carbon emission data (Scope 1 and Scope 2) for 1640 international firms from 2003 to 2015. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

地方政府竞争、科技创新与碳排放

在阐述地方政府竞争、科技创新影响碳排放内在机理的基础上,以2004—2019年省级面板数据为样本分析目前我国单位国内生产总值二氧化碳排放的空间特征,并采用固定效应模型及门槛模型实证分析地方政府竞争、科技创新及二者交互项对碳排放的影响。研究表明：我国单位国内生产总值二氧化碳排放量总体水平不断降低,碳排放量最大的地区集中在西北地区,最小的地区集中在北京以及东南部沿海地区;地方政府竞争、科技创新及二者交互项对碳排放均具有显著抑制作用,且科技创新对地方政府竞争驱动碳减排存在门槛效应;通过异质性分析发现,在不同的经济区和不同的产业发展水平下,地方政府竞争与科技创新对碳排放的作用效果存在差异性。因此,应当充分利用地方政府的“趋良竞争”,强化科技创新对碳减排的促进作用,推动产业升级,以实现可持续发展。     

什么因素多大程度上影响到 工业碳排放绩效

本文通过利用序列DEA（Sequential DEA）与方向性距离函数构造了碳排放绩效动态指数TCPt,规避了以往碳排放绩效测度的缺陷,较为精确地测算了2003-2010年中国30个省市地区的工业碳排放绩效,并从规模、工业结构、能源结构、要素禀赋、技术、环境规制及外资等七个维度出发,对中国工业碳排放绩效变化的影响因素及其相对重要程度进行了评估与分析。研究结果表明,在整体层面上,工业企业规模、技术水平及外资因素对工业碳排放绩效起到显著正向影响,而重工业比重、国有产权制度结构、资本深化及煤炭消费比重对工业碳排放绩效起到显著负面影响,环境规制对工业碳排放绩效的影响微乎其微,以上各因素的作用方向与相对重要程度因区域不同而存在一定的差异。最后,本文基于以上各因素对工业碳排放绩效的不同作用方向与相对重要程度,给出了差异化的政策内涵解读。     

Examining the carbon emission impact of livelihood transitions in pro-poor tourism

This study examines carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission changes from livelihood transitions during tourism development to assess the environmental impact of pro-poor tourism (PPT) in China. The results indicate that livelihood transitions during PPT increased household income but also produced more CO₂ emissions. CO₂ emissions vary depending on factors including livelihood types after transition, income and household sizes, etc. The CO₂ per unit of income from tourism-based livelihoods is higher than from non-tourism-based livelihoods. Different livelihood strategies post transition also affect emissions. Practical suggestions that may mitigate emissions while not compromising residents’ income levels are provided.     

技术创新、产业结构升级对能源消费的影响研究——以长三角地区为例北大核心

技术创新和产业结构升级是长三角地区优化能源消费、提高资源利用效率的关键。本文在分析技术创新、产业结构升级对能源消费的作用机制的基础上,运用长三角地区2000~2020年的面板数据构建面板向量自回归模型(PVAR)进行实证分析研究。研究结果表明,技术创新和产业结构升级短期内会造成能源消费的增加,而在长期对能源消费均表现出显著的抑制作用;技术创新、产业结构调整对能源消费的影响程度是逐步增强的,而能源消费自身的惯性作用则不断减弱;在长期中,产业结构升级和能源消费自身对能源消费的变动影响最大,技术创新影响相对较小。