A new approach to evaluate environmental strategy: Empirical evidence from international petroleum companies using the balanced scorecard model

Abstract

The core of this study is to empirically evaluate the environmental strategy in terms of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) from the perspectives of both managers and investors. The study incorporates the Porter hypothesis and the balanced scorecard (BSC) assumptions to analyze data from 17 international petroleum companies for the period 2005q1-2016q4 by linking the strategy map and BSC to the actual key performance indicators (KPIs). Panel dynamic regression analysis is employed to evaluate the said strategy for both the short and the long terms. The results clearly indicate that the environmental strategy has a significant and positive impact on the environmental performance not only in the short term but also in the long term. This study contributes to the BSC studies on this topic by presenting a perspective of the strategy in the form of a mathematical model that can be statistically testable for both the short and the long terms, thereby providing a guideline to managers for strategy evaluation purposes, optimization of resource allocation, and improvements in both the environmental and financial performances in the long term.