The Mediating Effect of the Sustainability Committee on the Relationship of Size of Board of Directors with Environmental Sustainability Disclosures: A Study in the Transportation Sector

Recently, studies have highlighted the impact of factors such as environmental, corporate governance, and social performances on companies’ sustainability activities. Therefore, the current study focuses on the impact of environmental and social activities of manufacturing and service enterprises operating in the transportation sector, which is at the forefront of pollutant component production, on sustainability disclosures. For this purpose, how the size of the board of directors in the transportation sector affects environmental sustainability disclosures and the mediating effect of the existence of a sustainability committee (SC) on ecological sustainability disclosures are discussed. For this, panel data analysis was carried out with the data of 47 companies operating in the transportation sector of European Union member countries between 2005 and 2020. The paper’s conclusions demonstrate that increasing board size and adding an SC to the board of directors will improve a company’s environmental performance. They also shows that the relationship between board size and environmental sustainability performance will be improved by the presence of an SC. The paper demonstrates that incorporating environmental sustainability initiatives into the strategic decision-making procedures of manufacturing and service firms in the transportation sector can offer another perspective to its stakeholders, policymakers, and sector organizations.