The Impact of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Corporate Social Responsibility in Korea

Jongmin Yu and Sejoong Lee
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Jongmin Yu: Department of Economics, Hongik University, Wausan-ro 94, Mapo-gu, Seoul 04066, Korea
Sejoong Lee: College of Business Administration, Hongik University, Wausan-ro 94, Mapo-gu, Seoul 04066, Korea

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: This study investigates the relationship between corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using GHG emissions data and the CSR index announced by the Korea Economic Justice Institute, we find that companies emitting more GHG are highly rated in the CSR index. This relationship becomes stronger as the firm size increases. This result indicates that reducing GHG, especially for big firms, may not be an effective way to raise the firm’s CSR index as expected. We interpret this result as suggesting that other social contribution behaviours may be valued more than GHG reduction, despite its actual environmental influence. We therefore argue that the current CSR index possibly underestimates the importance of environmental factors, such as GHG reduction, and thus, the index needs to be improved.

Keywords: greenhouse gas (GHG); corporate social responsibility (CSR); firm size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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