Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients Table III reports the descriptive statistics of dependent and independent variables. We found that 16 per cent of our sample firms are from developing countries; the mean ROA is approximately 5.6 per cent and the mean LEVERAGE is 24.9 per cent of total assets. The average growth opportunity (GROWTH) of the sample firms is 148.3percent(i.e.three-yearsalesgrowth).ThemeanvalueofCarbonEmissionis12.277, which is equivalent to an average total annual GHG emission (Scopes 1 and 2) of 214,700.6 tonnes in our sample. In addition, 57.7 per cent of firms in the sample are incommon-lawcountries;31.3percentofcompanieshaveparticipatedinanestablished ETS. The average natural logarithm of total assets is 8.344, implying average total assets in dollar terms of $4.204 billion. This suggests that our sample consists of relatively larger firms. The mean (and median) asset newness, measured as the ratio of net PPE to gross PPE, is comparable with that reported by Clarkson et al. (2008).