Abstract
This paper uses manually collected data of carbon information disclosure for listed companies, from 2009 to 2015 in China, to measure corporate carbon information disclosure, and it explores the impact of external pressure and internal governance on carbon information disclosure through text analysis and a hierarchy analysis process. The results show that, firstly, the greater the external pressure is, the higher the level of carbon information disclosure will be; that is, when listed companies are state-owned enterprises or in heavy pollution industries, the level of carbon information disclosure is higher. Secondly, the higher the level of corporate governance is, the higher the level of carbon information disclosure will be; that is, when the board of directors is larger, the proportion of independent directors is higher, and the chairman and general manager positions are differentiated, the level of carbon information disclosure is higher. Furthermore, when listed companies are state-owned and in heavy pollution industries, the level of carbon information disclosure is higher; when the chairman and general manager are in the same position (lower governance level), the positive impact of government pressure on carbon disclosure is less significant, the positive impact of external pressure on carbon disclosure is less significant, and the positive interactive impact of government pressure and external pressure on carbon disclosure is less significant. The conclusions of this paper are still robust after Heckman two-stage regression, propensity score matching (PSM) analysis, sub-sample regression, and double clustering analysis.
Highlights
As the problem of climate warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions becomes more and more serious, how to deal with global change is becoming a global hot topic
Some studies found that a larger board of directors and a higher proportion of independent directors, a higher level of internal governance of the company, and a lower level of internal governance of the company when the chairman of the board of directors and the general manager are in the same position all affect the quality of firm information disclosure
The mean values of the independent variables GP and POLU were 0.400 and 0.384, respectively, showing that, among listed companies, state-owned enterprises account for about 40%, and heavy polluting enterprises account for about 38.4%
Summary
As the problem of climate warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions becomes more and more serious, how to deal with global change is becoming a global hot topic. This paper collects carbon information disclosure data of listed companies in China from 2009 to 2015, measures the level of carbon information disclosure by qualitative and quantitative methods, and studies the influencing factors of carbon information disclosure level for the listed companies based on organizational legitimacy theory and governance theory. This paper studies the factors affecting the carbon emissions of listed companies in China, and provides relevant recommendations for listed companies to reduce carbon emissions, thereby achieving China’s energy conservation and emission reduction targets. Based on the collected data and stakeholders and organizational legitimacy theory, this paper brings external pressure and internal governance into the research framework to study their impacts on the level of corporate carbon information disclosure, which provides a new framework for the influencing factors of carbon information disclosure of listed companies.
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