Does board diversity encourage an environmental policy focused on resource use, emission reduction and innovation? The case of companies in Latin America

This study aims to identify the effect of board diversity on environmental policy in Latin American companies. This research focuses on 11 industrial sectors in Brazil, Mexico, and Chile that took into consideration a broader extension of environmental policy, involving practices regarding resource use, emissions reduction, and innovation. Drawing on corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) relationships, a regression analysis was conducted with 1214 firm-year observations from 181 companies. Our results indicate that the predominantly weak CG in Latin America might favour the use of manipulative environmental policy decisions. Board diversity does not have a relevant influence on CSR activities, as environmental issues are only taken into account so far as the cost of natural resources, while issues such as environmental innovation and reducing emission are not part of the agenda. In Brazil and Chile, independent directors have no significant effect on environmental policy decisions, while in Mexico, a less independent board grants managers greater discretion to establish an environmental policy, whereas in all three countries, board gender diversity has no significant effect. The theoretical insights drawn from this study reinforce that board composition, as an internal CG mechanism, is insufficient to overcome the institutional voids and give protagonist to sustainability issues in Latin America, reiterating the need for more robust CG mechanisms to coerce CSR.