Hitting the nail on the head instead of beating the bush: Does corporate social responsibility actually address corporate environmental sustainability?

The current study assesses the impact of CSR on corporate environment sustainability taking energy intensity as the measure of the latter. We consider the Indian manufacturing firms as our sample for analysis for the period 2015 through 2022. We employ fixed effect regression, Driscoll–Kraay standard errors and the feasible GLS method for our empirical analysis. Interestingly, we find CSR does not depict firms’ sustainable practices in true sense. While the Indian manufacturing firms keep spending on CSR, they apparently fail to heed their energy intensity level, which is suspected as greenwashing. Among other variables, we underline that firms investing in R&D can effectively optimize their energy intensity. Similarly, larger firms and firms with better profitability are found to be less energy intensive. Oppositely, firms with higher asset tangibility and higher financial leverage are more energy intensive. The findings of the study can further guide Indian firms to evaluate their CSR practices. It can also guide social activists, researchers and policymakers to understand the importance of the environmental concerns of CSR. The findings of our empirical analysis endorse regular assessment of environmental legislation and regulatory mechanism.