Quality Of Information Environment Research Articles

Impact of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 adoption on corporate performance: evidence on a bank-based system

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the impact of the adoption of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 on the performance of Portuguese companies. The sample includes the companies listed on Euronext Lisbon, with economic, financial and specific information – the specific being environmental information and quality information – for the period between 2015 and 2019, which corresponds to the post-Troika period when some economic growth started to be witnessed. The specific information of each area is translated into the environmental certification by the ISO 14001 standard, the quality certification by the ISO 9001 standard, and sustainability reports.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve this aim, four variables were used as a measure of the companies' performance, Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE); Tobin's Q and EBITDA Margin. With this data, different panel models were tested to validate if ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications impact Portuguese listed companies performance. Specifically, the authors have used the Generalized Method of Moments, GMM-System, an estimation method proposed by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998).FindingsThe results show that, in general, the environment and quality variables fail to explain the dependent variables, that is, ISO certifications do not provide positive or negative variations in the performance of companies, suggesting that they are not yet as much for civil society, as well as for current or potential shareholders. When used as an independent variable, certification according to the ISO 14001 or 9001 standards, negative and significant oscillations were verified in the dependent variable, MgEBITDA, suggesting that only for managers this variable is determinant, but with a negative impact, given the high costs, it entails without pressure from other stakeholders.Originality/valueThis study is the first to analyze the impact of the adoption of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 on Portuguese companies' performance. This empirical study aims to show all investors, managers, regulators and civil society itself the long path that still needs to be taken toward sustainability.

Can environmental information disclosure reduce air pollution? Evidence from China

Previous studies have focused on the reduction effect of regulation-based instruments and economic-based instruments on air pollution, ignoring the importance of environmental information disclosure. Based on the Ambient Air Quality Standards (AAQS), a quasi-natural policy implemented in 2012, this paper assesses the effect of environmental information disclosure on air pollution through a dynamic spatial difference-in-difference (DID) model using panel data of 269 cities from 2006 to 2017 in China. We find that the implementation of the AAQS results in a 3% reduction of local PM2.5 concentration and a 3.3% reduction of PM2.5 concentration in the surrounding cities. Further analysis suggests that environmental information disclosure reduces air pollution through enhancing public environmental concerns, green innovation, and industrial upgrading. We also explore the moderating effect of government environmental regulation and heterogeneity analysis in different regions. Our findings suggest that government should further develop the scope and quality of environmental quality information disclosure. Moreover, the local government should provide more support for the green transformation of enterprises and provide necessary support during the transition period. In addition, long-term sustainable environmental protection policies must be able to mobilize regional initiatives for green development.

Payment for environmental service, fair value and market value: a typological study of paper segment industry / Pagamento por serviço ambiental, valor justo e valor de mercado: um estudo tipológico da indústria do segmento de papel

Payment for Environmental Services became law in Brazil in 2021 (14,119/21). Thus, a milestone is installed in the treatment of relevant environmental aspects. In this context, the quality of environmental information must be seen as a business language at the international level. Therefore, this research seeks to investigate it seeks to understand the typological alignment applied in the texts of Law 14.119/21 in relation to the theoretical framework on the IFRS standard that deals with fair value: Fair value CPC 46 - Fair Value Measurements (financial instruments); IFRS 13 Fair Value Measurement and Biological Assets (Plants and Animals) CPC 29 - IAS 41. For methodology, case studies were used with Klabin SA as the object and an analysis of the document type was also carried out in the text of the Payment Law environmental services (PSA) and the quarterly report of a potentially polluting company in the pulp and paper segment. Through the discussions and the results, it was possible to verify that some aspects related to financial information (fair value and market value) were not taken into account in the wording of the aforementioned Law. It was also observed that the PES Law outlines more environmental issues than those observed by the company in question.

Collection and Utilization of Indoor Environmental Quality Information Using Affordable Image Sensing Technology

Incorporating Internet of Things (IoT) technology into the operation of buildings is expected to generate immense synergy, thereby saving energy and improving occupant comfort by overcoming the limitations of the existing system. Preventing operations in the absence of occupants can save energy, and the occupants’ preferred operating temperature should be used as the control set-point rather than the nominal temperature. In this study, IoT technology and image sensors are used to rapidly detect indoor environment changes, and a method is proposed to utilize air quality and thermal comfort as the control set-points. A real-time ventilation control algorithm is proposed based on the CO2 concentration calculated according to the number of occupants. To check the thermal comfort level, the real-time operating temperature estimated from the surface temperature data of the infrared array sensor is reflected in the comfort zone defined by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The deficiencies in indoor environment conditions caused by the temporal and spatial lag of sensors in the old system are minimized using IoT technology, which also facilitates wireless communications. The image sensors can be used for multiple purposes based on various interpretations of the image information obtained.

New computational methods with Sunlight, Daylight, and Quality Views for Regenerative Design

This paper investigates novel computational methods for Regenerative Design by developing further on the European Daylight Standard EN 17037, to make it useful at both urban and architectural scales. Case studies are evaluated for sunlight, daylight and quality views. A computational method, compliant with EN 17037, is introduced for the evaluation of sunlight. An assessment of daylight metrics, for an office building in Helsinki, with a 300 lux target, demonstrates a 12% difference between spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA; occupied hours) and Illuminance levels (EN 17037 method 2; daylight hours), 37% between sDA and Daylight Factor (EN 17037 method 1), and 25% between methods 1 and 2. A new computational method for evaluating ‘views’ on the floorplan is proposed that considers ‘view content’ (EN 17037 View Out layers), ‘view access’, the potential viewpoint-based ‘outside distance’, and can be extended to add the ‘quality of environmental information’. Further research directions and use of spatial metrics are discussed for sunlight, daylight, and view quality.

The Determinants of Environmental Disclosure Quality: Empirical Evidence from Indonesia

Sustainability issues have increased the need for stakeholder toward environmental information disclosure. Quality of environmental information is pivotal for stakeholders to make a proper assessment of a firm’s environmental performance. This study examines the relationship between a firm’s characteristics and environmental disclosure quality. Firm’s characteristics in this study refer to the size, ownership concentration, age, and leverage. Content analysis of sustainability reporting was applied in this study. The study involved 33 listed firms in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) that are consistently issued sustainability reporting during 2014-2016. Simultaneously test indicated that characteristics of the firm significantly explain the variance of environmental disclosure quality. However, partially test showed that leverage is the only variable significantly influenced environmental disclosure quality.

Qualidade da informação ambiental versus rentabilidade de empresas do setor elétrico listadas no ISE

A teoria dos stakeholders presume que os investimentos socioambientais resultam melhor desempenho financeiro, visto que refletem a preocupação da empresa com o meio ambiente e a sociedade. O presente estudo objetivou verificar a relação existente entre a qualidade da informação ambiental e a rentabilidade de empresas do setor de energia elétrica pertencentes ao Brasil Bolsa Balcão (B3) listadas no Índice de Sustentabilidade Empresarial (ISE). A amostra compreendeu 10 empresas brasileiras com ações negociadas na B3 no período de 2014 a 2017. Quanto à coleta de dados, utilizou-se: o Relatório de Sustentabilidade, o modelo Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), as Demonstrações Financeiras Padronizadas (DFPs) e informações econômico-financeiras extraídas no banco de dados do Sistema Economática®. A partir dos resultados evidenciou-se que as empresas têm o grau de acurácia médio ou alto, indicando boa qualidade de evidenciação. Ao aplicar a técnica estatística de regressão quantílica, percebeu-se que um maior nível de evidenciação dada pelo índice de acurácia não está associado às variáveis Lucros antes de Juros, Impostos, Depreciação e Amortização (EBITDA), Lucro antes do Imposto de Renda + Disponibilidade Financeira Líquida (LAIR+DLF), Margem Bruta, Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (Margem EBIT), Margem Ebitda, Rentabilidade do Ativo (RentAt) e Retorno sobre o Investimento (ROIC). No geral, os resultados indicaram a inexistência de relação entre a rentabilidade das empresas e as ações socioambientais.

The impact of corporate environmental responsibility on financial performance-based on Chinese listed companies.

In recent years, environmental protection issues have come under the spotlight. This paper constructs a corporate environmental responsibility evaluation index and examines the impact of environmental responsibility performance on financial performance in China based on the information of A-share listed companies disclosed in the "Company Annual Report" and "Social Responsibility Report" from 2008 to 2017. The empirical results show that: (1) without considering the quality of environmental information, fulfilling environmental responsibility can significantly improve the corporate financial performance; (2) after incorporating the quality of environmental responsibility performance and classifying corporations into subgroups by region and attribute, the fulfillment of environmental responsibility has a significant positive impact on the corporate financial performance in the sample of eastern region and non-state-holding companies, with a lag effect, while it has a negative impact in the sample of central region. The research above politically suggests that the Chinese government should establish a long-term management mechanism to encourage companies to fulfill their environmental responsibilities, improve the evaluation system of corporate environmental responsibility performance quality, as well as provide matching financial support or other compensation, thereby realize the sound and sustainable development of companies and the society.

Design and Implementation of Soil Environmental Quality Visualization System Based on WebGIS

Multi-scale soil environmental quality survey and social production practice have accumulated a large number of soil data, which is the valuable essential data for practice and research. It is urgent to rely on information technology to strengthen the management and application of soil information. This paper designs a WebGIS system for visualizing soil environmental quality based on the B/S model of three-tier network structure. The system uses the map engine ArcGIS API for JavaScript and HTML5 canvas dynamic rendering technology as the core of the technology, and combines ArcGIS Server and spatial database technology to achieve a series of functions such as soil environmental quality data management, soil pollution visualization and statistical analysis. The system deployment is applied to the Yunnan Provincial Environmental Monitoring Center Station, which enables rapid and high-performance visual display of soil environmental quality information and enhances the rapid information sharing capability between the environmental monitoring departments of Yunnan Province.

Distance and government resource allocation: from the perspective of environmental information disclosure policy change

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the relationship between environmental information and government resources and focuses on the moderate effect of distance. The results show that (1) the promulgation and implementation of the Measures for the Disclosure of Environmental Information (MDEI) can improve the level and quality of environmental information and then increase resource allocation and (2), after the MDEI are issued, distance has a significant negative moderate effect on the positive impact of MDEI, and the negative moderate effect of distance is more significant in low GDP and marketization regions, high-polluting industries and firms audited by the non-Big 4 accounting firms.

Research on PM2.5 time series characteristics based on data mining technology

With the development of data mining technology and the establishment of environmental air quality database, it is necessary to discover the potential correlations and rules by digging the massive environmental air quality information and analyzing the air pollution process. In this paper, we have presented a sequential pattern mining method based on the air quality data and pattern association technology to analyze the PM2.5 time series characteristics. Utilizing the real-time monitoring data of urban air quality in China, the time series rule and variation properties of PM2.5 under different pollution levels are extracted and analyzed. The analysis results show that the time sequence features of the PM2.5 concentration is directly affected by the alteration of the pollution degree. The longest time that PM2.5 remained stable is about 24 hours. As the pollution degree gets severer, the instability time and step ascending time gradually changes from 12-24 hours to 3 hours. The presented method is helpful for the controlling and forecasting of the air quality while saving the measuring costs, which is of great significance for the government regulation and public prevention of the air pollution.

Soft or hard information? A trade-off selection of environmental disclosures by way of peer imitation and geographical distance

ABSTRACTWith the public pressure increasing, increasingly more number of studies explore how managers respond to outer pressures by using the environmental disclosure tool. However, previous studies ignore systematic research on the condition, duplicity and consequences of environmental disclosures. This article studies how geographical distance and peer imitation influence managers’ selection of soft and hard environmental disclosures and their economic consequences based on cost-benefit trade-off models and empirical data. The results indicate that when public pressure increases sharply, geographical distance has a negative influence on hard environmental disclosures, and peer imitation has a positive influence on soft environmental disclosures. Under the joint effect of two factors, managers tend to disclose soft environmental information more than hard environmental information, which cannot only mitigate potential risks but also ensure good economic consequences. To restrict managers’ opportunistic disclosure behaviour and improve the disclosing level and quality of environmental information, detailed standard norms and heavy punishment measures should be established, and regulating departments should regulate the disclosure behaviour of distanced firms and check the redundancy of soft environmental information to ensure whether the same information is repeatedly disclosed in the annual reports.

Managerial Attitudes on Environmental Reporting: Evidence from Croatia

Environmental responsibility is an important element of business sustainability. It is operationalised through environmental accounting and reporting, which have become inevitable management tools in modern business. International reporting frameworks, legislation, and the requirements of stakeholders, necessitate thinking about environmental information which businesses should report. Decisions on reporting environmental information is associated with managerial attitudes and expectations. The lack of research, especially in European countries, on the importance of environmental reporting for a company’s management, is the reason for conducting this study. Therefore, the main objective of the research was to investigate managerial attitudes regarding the importance of environmental information for companies stakeholders. A survey was used to collect data. The analysis of the distribution of managers’ responses shows that most respondents believe environmental information is part of corporate social responsibility. From the standpoint of the companies it is ethical to collect and report environmental information. Through the factor analysis of managerial attitudes, research indicates variables of the highest importance in the extracted factor: the usefulness of environmental information for different stakeholders, the importance of exploring stakeholders’ interests, and the importance of ensuring the quantity and quality of environmental information. The extracted factor, labelled as “the importance of environmental reporting” was further defined as a dependent variable in a simple linear regression model in which industry and size of the company were defined as independent variables. Research identifies only the industry of the company as positively and significantly related to dependent variable.

Demand for environmental quality information and household response: Evidence from well-water arsenic testing

Access to information about environmental quality may facilitate low-cost preventive measures that protect human health. In this paper, we study the demand for information about environmental quality and the behavioral response to the information provided. With a field experiment conducted in Bihar (India), we estimate the price sensitivity of demand for diagnostic testing of drinking water wells for arsenic of natural origin – a serious threat to the health of tens of millions of villagers across South and Southeast Asia. Demand is substantial but sensitive to price; uptake falls from 68% to 31% of households over our price range (Rs. 10 to Rs. 50). We further assess how households respond to information regarding the contamination level in their wells. About one-third of households with unsafe wells switch to a safer water source. Finally, we demonstrate that households that received adverse test outcomes are more likely to selectively forget test results, and proactively remove evidence of their wells' arsenic status.

Household informedness and policy analytics for the collection and recycling of household hazardous waste in California

Collection and recycling of household hazardous waste (HHW) can vary due to differences in household incomes, demographics, material recyclability, and HHW collection programs. We evaluate the role of household informedness, the degree to which households have the necessary information to make utility-maximizing decisions about the handling of their waste. Household informedness seems to be influenced by HHW public education and environmental quality information. We assess the effects of household informedness on HHW collection and recycling using panel data, community surveys, drinking water compliance reports, and census data in California from 2004 to 2012. The results enable the calculation of the responsiveness or elasticity of the output quantities of HHW collected and recycled for differences in household informedness at the county level. There are three main findings: (1) provision of HHW public education has a positive effect on the amount of HHW collected and recycled, but may have a negative effect on HHW collected in some circumstances; (2) environmental quality information about contaminant violations in drinking water has a negative association with the amount of HHW collected; and (3) when information is sent directly via mail to households, an increase in the number of contaminant level (MCL) violations is positively related to the amount of HHW collected. Understanding how these effects work in California can help waste management policy-makers and practitioners in other locations to plan appropriate information policies and programs to maximize household participation in HHW collection and recycling based on household informedness and demographic characteristics.

Policy Analytics, Household Informedness and the Collection of Household Hazardous Waste

Proper collection of Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) is an important action to support environmental sustainability. We investigate the role of household informedness , the degree to which households have the necessary information to make utility-maximizing decisions, as they relate to participation in HHW collection programs. We find two factors that influence household informedness: the provision of public education about HHW and environmental quality information. We conducted an empirical study on HHW collection in California to obtain statistical evidence on the effect of these factors on the amount of HHW collected. The findings of this policy analytics study improve our understanding of how household informedness influences household decision-making in participating in HHW collection programs. This study is useful in the guidance it offers to devise new information policies to maximize households’ participation in HHW collection program.

Discrimination of vegetation types in alpine sites with ALOS PALSAR-, RADARSAT-2-, and lidar-derived information

Natural vegetation monitoring in the alpine mountain range is a priority in the European Union in view of climate change effects. Many potential monitoring tools, based on advanced remote sensing sensors, are still not fully integrated in operational activities, such as those exploiting very high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) or light detection and ranging (lidar) data. Their testing is important for possible incorporation in routine monitoring and to increase the quantity and quality of environmental information. In this study the potential of ALOS PALSAR and RADARSAT-2 SAR scenes' synergic use for discrimination of different vegetation types was tested in an alpine heterogeneous and fragmented landscape. The integration of a lidar-based canopy height model (CHM) with SAR data was also tested. A SPOT image was used as a benchmark to evaluate the results obtained with different input data. Discrimination of vegetation types was performed with maximum likelihood classification and neural networks. Six tested data combinations obtained more than 85% overall accuracy, and the most complex input which integrates the two SARs with lidar CHM outperformed the result based on SPOT. Neural network algorithms provided the best results. This study highlights the advantages of integrating SAR sensors with lidar CHM for vegetation monitoring in a changing environment.

Market Behavior with Environmental Quality Information Costs

Formally, eco-labels are modeled as tools that enable the mitigation of informational asymmetry on product environmental quality. We argue that even in the presence of an eco-label, markets for eco-friendly products may still be inefficient. We model eco-friendly goods as goods with environmental quality information costs. We induce buyers' preferences in laboratory posted offer markets with information costs on products' quality. We analyze the effect of varying information costs on market efficiency and consumer information demand. We also test for the effect of self-declared labels. We find that a low information cost introduces a friction not high enough to lead to adverse selection whereas a high information cost drives out high quality products. We find self-declared labels have a positive effect on market efficiency but only sellers benefit from self-declared labels. We find that demand for information follows the classic law of demand and that it is a non linear function of product price as theoretically expected. We also find that, when information costs are high, demand for information decreases when sellers use self-declared labels: either buyers use self-declared labels as an information-revelation device or reputational affects feedbacks are a substitute for information demand. We draw implications for the design of eco-labels.

Analysis on the coupling law between economic development and the environment in Ürümqi city

The inter-coupling relationship between urban economic development and the ecological environment refers to the total of interactive, inter-influenced and other non-linear relations between economic and environmental systems in the course of economic development. Taking Urumqi, an oasis city in arid region, as an example, we collected the data of environmental quality & pollutants discharge and information on economic development in the 20 years, analyzed the correlation between the two, conducted a fitted regression with quadratic and cubic equations, and acquired 14 mathematic models that could describe the relationship between the environment and economic development. The results show that there exists a coordinated and interactive relationship between the environment and economic development. On the basis of these quantity analyses, conceptional frame model is built to explain the fundamental basis of this environmental coupling in Urumqi city. Both a quantitative analysis of the coupling law and a good command of the internal law between them are useful for making comprehensive decisions about the environment and economic development and harmonizing the urban sustainable development.

Do social learning and conformist bias coevolve? Henrich and Boyd revisited

We studied the coevolution of social learning and conformist bias in a modified version of the Henrich and Boyd [1998. The evolution of conformist transmission and the emergence of between-group differences. Evol. Hum. Behav. 19, 215–241] model that nevertheless preserves its essential features. The convergent stable strategies (CSS) are identified by a numerical adaptive dynamics method and then checked for evolutionary stability. A strategy that is simultaneously a CSS and an ESS is called an attractive evolutionarily stable strategy (AESS). Our main findings are as follows. First, the AESS reliance on social learning is monotone increasing in the fixed interval between environmental changes and monotone decreasing in the quality of environmental information. Second, the AESS strength of conformist bias is monotone non-increasing in the fixed interval between environmental changes and monotone non-decreasing in the quality of environmental information. The first observation is in agreement with Henrich and Boyd (1998), but the second is in direct contradiction. In addition, we conducted Monte Carlo simulations as in Henrich and Boyd (1998), which supported our findings. We believe that the reason for the discrepancy with regard to the strength of conformist bias is that Henrich and Boyd (1998) did not allow a sufficient number of iterations for true convergence to occur. In conclusion, the conditions favoring a heavy reliance on social learning are not the same as those favoring a strong conformist bias.