A comparative study of environmental information disclosure between banks in net-zero banking alliance and China

Abstract

This study compares the discourse and quality of environmental information disclosure (EID) in reports from five banks in Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and four banks in China over the period 2016–2021. Python is employed as the primary research tool to work out the high-frequency words and the word co-occurrence matrix. With the theoretical framework of the Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) six principles for defining report quality, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is employed to construct a quality assessment model, calculating the total weight of each corpus. The results indicate distinct differences in the information disclosure themes between NZBA and Chinese banks. As for the quality, NZBA banks exhibit higher quality environmental information disclosure compared to Chinese banks. Specifically, NZBA banks outperform in the principles of balance, accuracy, and clarity. This study contributes significantly to the analysis of environmental information disclosure, highlighting disparities in discourse and report quality between NZBA and Chinese banks. The findings offer valuable insights for banking practitioners, aiding them in enhancing the quality of environmental information disclosure. This study further reflects the varying economic and developmental priorities of the two banking contexts, influenced by economic and technological cycles.