Environmental initiatives: impact on firm wealth creation

This study investigates the impact of environmental initiatives adopted by firms on wealth creation. A sample consisting primarily of 4886 developed and emerging market firms from Thomson Reuters ESG database is used for the study. Findings support that firms from emerging market had higher use of resources and emission reduction efficiency than the developed counterparts. Environmental initiatives were higher for polluting firms compared to non-polluting firms. Non-health sectors had higher environmental initiatives like efficient use of resources, emission reduction and innovation strategies targeted towards the reduction of environmental costs. Food sector had higher environmental initiatives compared to the non-food sector. Firms from sin industries had positive market valuation effects. Using regression analysis, our study examines the impact of environmental initiatives on three models of performance. The study suggests that environmental initiatives to reduce environmental emissions and activities targeted at environmental innovation are not value enhancing activities for entities. Empirical findings supporting that environmental initiatives do not lead to improved financial performance lead to have implications for managers and policy makers. With markets not perceiving environmental initiatives as value creating activities by firms, actions targeted towards emission reduction, adoption of environmental innovation strategies and resource efficiency are not positively viewed by markets.