The External Pressure, Internal Drive and Voluntary Carbon Disclosure in China

Abstract

ABSTRACT The increasingly serious environmental problems, such as rising sea levels and heavy smog, have made environmental consciousness in society more urgent. The key issue is how to motivate firms to disclose environmental information. In this paper, we use data on 200 listed enterprises in China as a sample and research the factors that affect voluntary carbon disclosure. We found that local government regulatory pressure and social pressure have different levels of influence on carbon information disclosure of state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises; local government regulatory pressure have a greater impact on state-owned enterprises’ carbon information disclosure, while social pressures have a greater impact on non-state-owned enterprises. Finally, we make some suggestions aimed at promoting disclosure of carbon information.