Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/222857 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
DIW Discussion Papers No. 1875
Version Description: 
May 2020 - Updated version of DP 1795. Please cite this updated version.
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
We examine whether a disclosure mandate for greenhouse gas emissions creates stakeholder pressure for firms to subsequently reduce their emissions. For UK-incorporated listed firms such a mandate was adopted in 2013. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that firms affected by the mandate reduced their emissions - depending on the specification - by an incremental 14-18% relative to a control group. This reduction was accompanied by an average 9% increase in production costs. At the same time, the treated firms were able to increase their sales by an almost compensating amount. Taken together, our findings provide no indication that the disclosure requirement led to a significant deterioration in the financial operating performance of the treated firms, despite the significant carbon footprint reduction following the disclosure mandate.
Subjects: 
disclosure of non-financial information
mandatory disclosure
greenhouse gas emissions
real effects
JEL: 
Q28
Q40
M41
M48
Additional Information: 
An earlier version of this paper was titled "Fighting Climate Change with Disclosure? The Real Effects of Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Emission Disclosure".
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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