Firm's biodiversity initiatives disclosure and board gender diversity: A multi-country analysis of corporations operating in Europe

Environmental practices, in particular biodiversity protection, are crucial for a business to maintain its market valuation and social license. Grounded in resource dependency theory and upper echelon theory, we test the link between board gender diversity and firm's biodiversity initiatives disclosure. Also, we investigate potential moderating variables such as eco-innovation, resource consumption reduction, and firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) awards that could strengthen the link between board gender diversity and corporate biodiversity initiatives disclosure. To empirically test our study's framework, we rely on a sample of non-financial firms operating in 13 European countries between 2002 and 2021. Our estimation results show that women's presence on boards is positively associated with better disclosure of biodiversity conservation initiatives of a firm. Also, our study suggests that firm's eco-innovation, resource usage, and CSR awards are important and moderate the board gender diversity and biodiversity conservation disclosure nexus. Our results hold to a battery of sensitivity analyses.