Resumo

Ecological issues are increasingly a significant factor in business decisions is becoming more important for companies (García Martín & Herrero, 2020). An overload of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere contributes to climate change and global warming, leading to changes in food security, a rapid shrinking of the planet green cover and an increase in the Earth's temperature (Al-Qahtani & Elgharbawy, 2020).

The objective of the paper is to analyze the influence of board diversity (gender diversity, board independence diversity and board skill diversity) on the greenhouse gas emissions efficiency. Theoretically, the effect of board diversity on greenhouse gas emissions efficiency can be explained using a number of theories

In Latin America, greenhouse gas emissions increased 0.7% between 1990 (3,414 MtCO2eq) and 2020 (4,020 MtCO2eq) (Koengkan & Fuinhas, 2020). Board diversity can be viewed as a structural phenomenon addressing board independence, CEO independence and director ownership, or a demographic phenomenon comprising ethnicity, gender, and age (Hoang et al., 2018) and diverse boards benefit from different perspectives to better perform their duties (Baker et al., 2020).

Our sample is composed of 1047 firm-year observations from 287 firms from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru between 2015 and 2019. We test our hypotheses using the generalized method of moments (GMM) system estimator appropriate for relatively short periods (Blundell & Bond, 1998). Greenhouse gas emissions efficiency is presented in this study as the dependent variable, this variable is calculated as logarithm of the ratio between greenhouse gas emissions of scope 1 and the gross revenue, thus measuring greenhouse gas emissions efficiency.

We find a positive and significant relationship between gender diversity and greenhouse gas emissions efficiency in Latin America firms. This result is consistent with agency, upper echelons and resource dependency theories. A negative and insignificant relationship between board specific skills and greenhouse gas emissions efficiency was also found. In addition, we noted a negative and insignificant relationship between board independence diversity and greenhouse gas emissions efficiency.

This study analyzes the link between board diversity and greenhouse gas emissions efficiency. Using a data of 287 Latin America firms over a 5-year period (2015-2019), we employ two-step system GMM to test study hypotheses. We measure greenhouse emissions efficiency as logarithm of the ratio between greenhouse gas emissions of scope 1 (direct emissions), in tons of CO2 equivalent - tCO2e, and the gross revenue. We also use the Blau index to measure board diversity (gender diversity, board specific skills diversity and board independence diversity).

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