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The Role of the Board of Directors in Disseminating Relevant Information on Greenhouse Gases

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Abstract

In today’s world, the corporate image of the largest companies is closely linked to their performance in the field of corporate social responsibility and the disclosure of information on that topic, specifically, on climate change. Since the Board of Directors is the body responsible for this process, the aim of this article is to show the role that companies’ Boards of Directors play in the accountability process vis-à-vis stakeholders in relation to one specific aspect which has enormous significance in environmental information: practices used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this, we shall verify certain business characteristics, in addition to the size and activity of the Board of Directors, and we shall take different dependence models into consideration. These models will include variables related to the level of independence and diversity of the Board of Directors, which interact with dummy variables representing the company’s litigation risks regarding environmental behavior and the institutional macro-context of the organization’s country of origin. The results make it clear that Boards of Directors are basically focused on the traditional responsibility of creating economic value, instead of dealing with today’s broader business world concepts, which include social responsibility. This focus, therefore, does not favor the accountability process before other stakeholders, if this makes it more difficult to protect the interests of shareholders.

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  1. University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Jose-Manuel Prado-Lorenzo & Isabel-Maria Garcia-Sanchez

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  1. Jose-Manuel Prado-Lorenzo
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  2. Isabel-Maria Garcia-Sanchez
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Correspondence to Jose-Manuel Prado-Lorenzo.

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Prado-Lorenzo, JM., Garcia-Sanchez, IM. The Role of the Board of Directors in Disseminating Relevant Information on Greenhouse Gases. J Bus Ethics 97, 391–424 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0515-0

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