This article explains the recent study “Going Green: Market Reaction to CSR Newswire Releases” by Professor Paul Griffin. “A lot of people were saying we need to engage in a climate change strategy,” said Griffin, “but there was little or no evidence that this was improving shareholder value. We wanted to look at whether there was an association between voluntary disclosure and shareholder price.”

A pair of California business school researchers has found that companies that disclose greenhouse gas emissions enjoy an immediate rise in stock value and positive returns to shareholders.

“When a company makes a voluntary disclosure of this kind, it signals to the investment community that this is a firm that is environmentally responsible,” Paul Griffin of UC Davis told The Daily Climate, an environmental news source. “Investors are saying they would prefer to invest in an environmentally responsible firm.”

This article reports on Professor Paul Griffin’s recent study, “Going Green: Market Reaction to CSR Newswire releases,” which found that in the days after firms voluntarily released emission information, their stock prices increased significantly.