This paper examines the impact of environmental responsibility on financial performance among firms in the energy sector. In addition, this study also assesses whether CSR and environmental responsibility are more value enhancing for firms with powerful CEOs. The sample consists of 75 firms obtained from the MSCI World Energy index from 2013 to 2017. Two − stage least − squares estimation is applied. The result shows that environmental responsibility practices positively affect a firm’s financial performance. When the three individual dimensions of environmental responsibility are considered, product innovation and resource reduction are positively associated with the firms’ financial performance, but emission reduction is not significant. In addition, this study finds no support for CEO power moderating the relationship between CSR and financial performance, or between environmental responsibility and financial performance. The evidence suggests that in the presence of CEO power, corporate environmental and social activities are not due to agency motives but rather something that is good for the firm and value enhancing, which is consistent with the stakeholder theory of corporate social responsibility.

本文研究了环境责任对能源部门企业财务绩效的影响。此外，本研究还评估了对于具有强大CEO的公司而言，企业社会责任和环境责任是否能进一步提高价值。该样本由2013年至2017年从MSCI世界能源指数中获得的75家公司组成。应用了两阶段最小二乘估计。结果表明，环境责任实践对企业的财务绩效产生积极影响。当考虑到环境责任的三个个体维度时，产品创新和资源减少与企业的财务绩效成正相关，但是减少排放并不重要。此外，这项研究没有发现支持首席执行官权力调节企业社会责任与财务绩效之间，或环境责任与财务绩效之间关系的支持。有证据表明，在存在CEO权力的情况下，公司的环境和社会活动不是由于代理动机引起的，而是有益于公司和价值提升的事物，这与利益相关者的公司社会责任理论相一致。