Does corporate environmental responsibility affect investor future goal in the energy sector firms?

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and firm's financial performance by using a sample set of 2,241 firm-year observations representing 470 unique energy firms from 30 countries from 2013-2020. Supporting stakeholder theory, we find that firms with better environmental responsibility actions are associated with higher Tobins'q, suggesting that the investors react positively to the firm's environmental initiatives. Overall, our findings suggest that firms in the energy sector should pay attention to corporate environmental responsibility practices to obtain a good response from the investors and achieve the firm's long-term financial goals.