Sustainable Real Estate

The relationship between corporate governance and firm performance is still an open issue in the current academic debate. Some studies have investigated if and to what extent board diversity may influence corporate performance and according to the predominant opinion in the existing literature, diversity in boards is considered a valid way to improve firm performance through corporate governance mechanisms. In the last years board gender diversity has become a heavily debated corporate governance topic not only in the institutional environment, but also in the academic one. In this scenario, the presence of women on the board has been analyzed in order to underline potential advantages to be interpreted from an economic point of view as well as from an ethical and social one. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the aforementioned relationships, namely between board diversity, with particular reference to gender diversity, percentage of independent directors, age of board of directors, and financial performance focusing on European Green REITs specific industry. By taking a broader view, considering simultaneously corporate governance, environmental engagement and financial performance, we aim at contributing to the academic debate that have argued the financial performance improvement through the involvement in ESG practices.