| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this master thesis is to examine whether joining the United Nations Global Compact has a significant effect on the release levels of toxic chemicals. The UN Global Compact is a global corporate sustainability initiative with over twenty thousand participants today. To address the aim of study, I use data on chemical releases as reported by companies in the United States to the Toxics Release Inventory from 1987 to 2021. Using an exploratory approach, I have employed several different models and subsets of the data to study the relationship between joining the UN Global Compact and chemical releases. In the main model, the variable of interest was the total chemical releases in pounds. The analyses from this model found a statistically significant and robust negative effect, indicating that joining the UN Global Compact is associated with large reductions in chemical releases by American companies. This finding was in part supported by a toxicity-weighted model. A model assessing percentage changes in chemical releases did not show significant effects. In conclusion, the analyses of this thesis, indicated that joining the UN Global Compact was associated with reductions in chemical releases. This could reflect a true effect of the program on chemical releases, however, the data generating process does not allow for causal interpretation of the finding. Alternative explanations, especially self-selection, cannot be excluded. | en_US |
