Affiliation:
1. Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering Sapienza University of Rome Rome Italy
2. Department of Economics, Management, Mathematics and Statistical Sciences University of Trieste Trieste Italy
Abstract
AbstractAlthough numerous scientific studies have extensively analyzed religion's impact on environmental performance at the firm level, the literature on environmental effects at a country level is relatively poor. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying how the dimensions of national culture, including religion, impact a country's sustainability performance in 96 countries. We apply Geert Hofstede's cross‐cultural dimensions and evaluate countries' sustainability performance using the EPI indicator, which provides a comprehensive environmental overview, including indicators such as climate change, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality. Additionally, to provide a more comprehensive framework for the sustainability performance of countries, we conducted a comparative analysis using the SDG index scores encompassing 1056 country‐year observations. Our findings suggest that the impact on a country's environmental performance varies according to the cultural dimension, mainly, the Christian religion positively influences national sustainability performance.