Abstract
The rate of climate change due to global warming has become a substantial concern and appeared as a real-world phenomenon in the recent years. However, it is imperative to know how business enterprises alter such concern. Recent studies involve a variety of firm-level factors to create a robust link between business enterprises' environmental and financial performance. However, little is known regarding the role of research and development (R&D) investment on firms' environmental performance. Using a firm-level data for the period 2004–2016 from G-6 countries, this study empirically investigates how R&D investment affects the firm environmental performance measured by energy and carbon emissions intensities. We find that R&D investment improves the firm's environmental performance consistent with the theoretical argument of natural resource-based view (NRBV). Our findings are robust to alternative econometric specifications, alternative variable specifications, and sub-samples. Our findings offer novel insights to the policymakers, business managers, and regulators.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 401-411 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Energy Economics |
| Volume | 78 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Carbon emissions
- Corporate R&D investment
- Energy intensity
- Sustainability