The Significance of Environmental Accounting in Promoting Supply-Side Structural Reform

Abstract

In recent years, the Chinese government has repeatedly emphasized that the relationship between the environment and the economy should be properly handled in the supply-side structural reform. The environmental accounting information of enterprises can reflect the environmental protection activities of enterprises in the past, so its importance has been increased in the current social and economic environment. The steel industry is one of the 16 heavy-polluting industries announced by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and environmentalists from all walks of life have been paying close attention to the environmental activities of the steel industry. And the steel industry is a pillar industry for the development of China’s national economy, and it is also the focus of the supply-side structural reform. This paper aims to explore the significance of environmental accounting information disclosure to the supply-side structural reform. By quantifying and scoring the environmental accounting information disclosure of three typical iron and steel enterprises, and calculating the height value of the iron and steel industry structure in the corresponding year. And the correlation analysis of the above two values can be concluded that there is a high correlation between the two. Through further theoretical and empirical analysis, it can be concluded that environmental accounting plays an important role in promoting the supply-side structural reform. Including helping enterprise managers and the government to better understand the environmental protection situation of enterprises, and urging enterprises to eliminate outdated production capacity. In order to improve the level of environmental accounting practice, efforts should also be made from three aspects: establishing a more complete environmental accounting information disclosure system, broadening the environmental accounting information disclosure channels, and strengthening the supervision of environmental accounting information disclosure.