Do CSR Efforts Reduce Environmental Decoupling: Evidence From S&P 500 Firms

ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) committees and CSR‐focused employee training on environmental decoupling. Using panel data of 2489 firm‐year observations from S&P 500 firms between 2009 and 2022, we employ fixed‐effects models to examine how CSR governance mechanisms influence the alignment between firms' environmental disclosures and their actual environmental performance. Our findings show that firms with CSR committees, as well as those with larger CSR committees, experience significantly lower levels of environmental decoupling. In addition, CSR employee training is associated with a reduction in under‐reporting, indicating improved disclosure among firms with relatively strong environmental performance. However, CSR training is also positively related to over‐reporting, suggesting that such initiatives may strengthen firms' disclosure practices without necessarily leading to parallel improvements in underlying environmental performance. Taken together, these results highlight the differentiated roles of CSR governance mechanisms in shaping environmental disclosure–performance alignment. While CSR committees appear to support substantive reductions in environmental decoupling, CSR training may operate more strongly through disclosure‐oriented channels, underscoring the importance of complementing training initiatives with mechanisms that promote tangible environmental performance improvements.