Received 3 January 2023 Accepted 25 April 2023 Available online xxx Keywords: Climate change Environmental innovation Board gender diversity Human capital Corporate governance Critical mass JEL codes: M14 O44 Q01 Q54 Introduction The need to !ght against climate change and its devastating effects on the planet represents one of the greatest challenges for humanity (IPCC, 2007). As a major emitter of greenhouse gases and waste generation, companies are urged by the various economic, political and social players to take measures to reduce their carbon footprint (Ben-Amar et al., 2017; Caby et al., 2022; Gull et al., 2022). One way to respond to these growing demands is to implement inno- vative solutions aimed at reducing pollutant emissions and waste generation, as well as resource consumption (García-Sa nchez et al., 2020; Haque, 2017). However, such initiatives are costly and can take time to have an effect, so their development requires strong commit- ment and support from the board (Atif et al., 2021; Gull et al., 2022; He & Jiang, 2019), as the main body responsible for corporate strate- gies and risk management (Issa & Bensalem, 2022; Nadeem et al., 2020). * Corresponding author. E-mail address: lajefa@usal.es (I.-M. García-S anchez). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jik.2023.100372 ABSTRACT This paper responds to recent calls to study the role that board gender diversity plays in shaping corporate responses to climate change. It examines whether female board representation is associated with greater cli- mate change innovation and whether its effect is determined by the presence of a greater number of inde- pendent female directors or the existence of a critical mass of female directors. The results obtained for a panel data of 3,928 companies over the period 2010!2020 (35,199 observations) con!rm that companies with a greater female board representation (both in number and in percentage) are more proactive in terms of investments in climate change innovation. This positive effect does not require a critical mass of female directors and diminishes when the percentage of female directors is higher than 46.78%, a proportion associ- ated with the presence of !ve or more female directors. Furthermore, female directors in"uence climate change innovation mainly through their involvement in management as executive directors, rather than through the monitoring and advisory roles that characterize independent directors. The theoretical and prac- tical implications derived from this research are robust to different considerations and methodological approaches.
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