{"title":"The role of city network in improving corporate ESG scores: Evidence from the C40 network","authors":"Honghong Wei , Xiaoyin Wei","doi":"10.1016/j.cities.2024.105237","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Cities are increasingly prominent on the climate change map because they are more interconnected than ever. This study investigates whether and if so, how the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) network influences corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores. Drawing upon the network embeddedness, we propose that the C40 improves the embedded firms' ESG/E scores. Our international evidence from a sample of 7206 firms across 84 countries confirms our hypotheses. Furthermore, we find that the Paris Agreement announcement can strengthen the positive relationship between the C40 and ESG/E scores, while financial slack can only enhance the C40-E score relationship. This study highlights the importance of the global city network in improving corporate sustainability performance and guides managers and policymakers to pursue a sustainability agenda.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48405,"journal":{"name":"Cities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cities","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275124004517","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"URBAN STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Cities are increasingly prominent on the climate change map because they are more interconnected than ever. This study investigates whether and if so, how the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) network influences corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores. Drawing upon the network embeddedness, we propose that the C40 improves the embedded firms' ESG/E scores. Our international evidence from a sample of 7206 firms across 84 countries confirms our hypotheses. Furthermore, we find that the Paris Agreement announcement can strengthen the positive relationship between the C40 and ESG/E scores, while financial slack can only enhance the C40-E score relationship. This study highlights the importance of the global city network in improving corporate sustainability performance and guides managers and policymakers to pursue a sustainability agenda.
期刊介绍:
Cities offers a comprehensive range of articles on all aspects of urban policy. It provides an international and interdisciplinary platform for the exchange of ideas and information between urban planners and policy makers from national and local government, non-government organizations, academia and consultancy. The primary aims of the journal are to analyse and assess past and present urban development and management as a reflection of effective, ineffective and non-existent planning policies; and the promotion of the implementation of appropriate urban policies in both the developed and the developing world.