Does it Really Pay to Be Green? An Empirical Study of Firm Environmental and Financial Performance

Abstract

Previous empirical work suggests that profitable firms tend to have high environmental performance, but questions persist about the nature of the relationship. Does stronger environmental performance really lead to better financial performance or is the observed relationship the outcome of some other underlying firm attribute? Does it pay to have clean running facilities or to have facilities in relatively clean industries? In other words, do the fixed attributes and strategic position of firms cause an apparent but false relationship between financial and environmental performance? To explore this issue, we analyze 606 U.S. manufacturing firms over the time period 1987 to 1996. While we find evidence of an association between lower pollution and higher financial valuation, we find that a firm's fixed characteristics and strategic position might cause or moderate this association. It suggests that "When does it pay to be green?" may be a more important question than "does it pay to be green?"

Keywords: beyond compliance, corporate strategy, environmental performance, Porter hypothesis