The Association between Voluntary Carbon Disclosure and Accounting Comparability: Examining the Moderating Effect of Korean Business Groups

Abstract

This study investigates whether voluntary carbon disclosure to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) is positively related to accounting comparability, one of the dimensions for evaluating the quality of financial reporting. It especially questions whether Korean business groups moderate the relationship between carbon disclosure and accounting comparability. It finds that accounting comparability is greater when firms voluntarily disclose carbon emissions to the CDP. It also finds a moderating effect of Korean business groups on the relationship between carbon disclosure and accounting comparability. These findings suggest that ethical environmental management in non-business groups encourages managers to provide comparable financial reports, whereas opportunistic environmental management in business groups results in managers producing less comparable financial reports. Therefore, this study is meaningful in finding that the voluntary disclosure of carbon emissions is a factor that increases the quality of financial reporting and in proposing that the environmental commissions provide sufficient guidance to prevent opportunistic disclosure of carbon emissions.