Beyond Symbolism: Examining the Impact of Sustainable Finance on Product Responsibility and the Moderating Role of Board Environmental Expertise—Evidence From <scp>UK</scp> Non‐Financial Firms

ABSTRACT Despite the growing emphasis on sustainable finance in today's corporate landscape, its impact on product responsibility remains underexplored, particularly the moderating role of board environmental expertise. This study addresses these gaps by examining non‐financial companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, chosen for the UK's progressive legal framework, stringent ESG reporting requirements, and global leadership in sustainable finance. Using purposive sampling, data from 143 companies spanning 2008–2024 were extracted from Refinitiv DataStream. The analysis employed advanced estimation techniques, including Cross‐Sectional Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS‐ARDL), Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) and two‐step difference Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) models. The findings reveal that environmental expenditures, emission reduction policies, and green bond issuance as a proxy for sustainable finance positively and significantly influence product responsibility. Furthermore, environmental expertise significantly strengthens the impact of environmental expenditures and emission reduction policies on product responsibility. The study recommends that corporate leaders move beyond symbolic sustainability efforts by integrating environmental strategies such as emission reduction and targeted environmental investments into core business operations, especially in product design, procurement, and lifecycle management, to achieve measurable improvements in ESG performance.