Toward sustainable development: Board characteristics, country governance quality, and environmental performance

The objective of this study is to examine the effects of board characteristics and country governance quality on both individual aspects and the overall level of environmental performance through the lens of agency, resource dependency, and institutional theories. The study is based on a sample of 3023 firm‐year observations from European companies operating in 22 countries between 2009 and 2016. Data on the resources, emissions, and innovation dimensions of environmental performance and board governance data were collected from the Refinitiv database, whereas financial data were extracted from the Worldscope database. The study employs a multilevel modeling analysis and the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation technique to analyze the data. The findings suggest that board gender diversity and the presence of a corporate social responsibility and sustainability committee have a positive impact on environmental performance. The results also show that country governance quality is positively related to environmental performance. The findings have important implications for practitioners, regulators, and policymakers with respect to the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms and country governance systems in determining corporate environmental practices.