A Controversy in Sustainable Development: How Does Gender Diversity Affect the ESG Disclosure?

As sustainable development is valued by more and more companies, the Environment, Society, and Governance (ESG) have become the standard for companies, investors, and policymakers to examine their strategies and investments. Recently, there has been increasing evidence that a company’s women employees can bring a powerful impact on a company’s strategies and development. This article combines the topics of both gender diversity and ESG disclosure and explores the relationship between them in a deeper insight. To this end, this research uses the regression model to use samples collected from A-share listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges to discover the relationship between the present or proportion of women in Top Management Teams (TMT as follows) and the disclosure of ESG performance. This model shows that the presence of women and the proportion of women in TMT can positively affect ESG disclosure scores. This result provides valuable insight for companies, investors, and policymakers into the relationship between gender diversity in TMT and ESG disclosure, emphasizing the implicit values laying under women leaders in sustainable development and proposing another strategy for the century’s goal of human sustainable development.