Are Higher-Educated Employees More Responsible? A Study about Employee Quality and Corporate Environmental Sustainability

This paper explores how employee quality affects companies’ actions in terms of environmental protection and sustainable development. We use the proportions of the workforce with three education levels as proxies for employee quality and examine their respective impacts on three dimensions of corporate environmental sustainability: (1) reporting, (2) quality and standardization, and (3) attention and initiative. We investigate over 1300 firms listed in Chinese stock markets from 2006, the year when Chinese firms first released environmental issues and the Chinese regulatory divisions first announced a guideline, to 2021. The results indicate the following: (a) employee quality is positively associated with the reporting of corporate environmental sustainability, (b) companies with more educated employees are more likely to provide environmental and sustainable information with high standards and quality, and (c) companies with more educated employees are more likely to release environmental and sustainable information in solo reports as a reflection of the corporate attention on and initiative in environmental sustainability. Moreover, we find that employees at higher education levels have a stronger impact on corporate environmental sustainability. This paper contributes to the literature on human capital and environmental management.