This paper explores the relationship between corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and ownership structure along with the role of media coverage. Our results show that environmental costs measuring CER are lower for firms with higher media coverage. There is also a statistically significant U-shaped curvilinear relationship between managerial ownership and total environmental costs. Environmental costs decrease with managerial ownership before managerial ownership reaches 20.8% level, and then increase afterwards. Our results support the view that good governance by external monitoring and incentivized management improves a firm’s CER activities and long-term viability of firms.