This study investigates the influence of corporate carbon emissions on a variety of financial performance outcomes on South African firms. The observations were produced from a sample of panel data that consists of 100 companies for the period between 2012-2021 by using panel fixed effects regression. The independent variable included in the empirical analysis is carbon performance, which is defined as the outcome of management action that addresses carbon emissions. The results show indication of a curvilinear link between financial performance and carbon performance emissions reported annually. The results show that the association is mostly positive for all financial indicators, but is only meaningful for ROA and ROIC.
Keywords: Financial performance; carbon emission; South Africa

1. Introduction 1
1.1. Motivation 2
1.2. Aims and objectives 2
1.3. Contributions 3
2. An Introduction to South Africa 5
2.1. Background 5
2.2. Climate change in South Africa 6
2.3. Climate change policies in South Africa 7
3. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development 9
3.1. Introduction 9
4. Data and Methodology 14
4.1. Data 14
4.2. Methodology 15
5. Empirical Results and Discussion 17
5.1. Results and Discussion 17
6. Conclusions 26
6.1. Implications for Policy Makers and Business Practice 26
6.2. Study Limitations and Future Research 27
7. Reference 28

Abstract i
Acknowledgement ii
List of Figures iv
List of Tables v

List of Figures
Figure 1 Map of the Region 5

List of Tables
Table 1 Variables explanation 14
Table 2 Descriptive Statistics 17
Table 3 Correlations 19
Table 4 Carbon performance and financial performance 21
Table 5 Carbon performance and financial performance-Big vs small firms 22
Table 6 Carbon efficiency and financial performance- Big vs small firms 23
Table 7 Carbon efficiency and financial performance for small firms 24
Table 8 Carbon efficiency and financial performance for big firms 25

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