Corporate Environmental Performance And Its Influencing Factors Evaluation Based On Information Disclosure

Since 1970s great attention has been paid to the evaluation of corporate environmental performance (CEP) and its influencing factors in developed countries. However, China is difficult to keep up with the related international study due to the restriction to data resource, which should attribute to the poor status in the practice of corporate environmental information disclosure (CEID). Since 2006, Chinese enterprises has been began to promote standardized CEID, therefore, the evaluation of CEP and its influencing factors has now been a focus in the field of corporate environmental management. In general, relevant researches are still at its primary stage, some important issues are remained to be discussed, just like the methodology of evaluation of CEP need to be perfected, the impact on CEP by different stakeholders was not well considered, and the interaction between CEP and corporate financial performance (CFP) has to be cleared in a quantitative perspective. Solving these problems is of great important theoretical and practical significance to promote CEID and improving CEP of China enterprises.Based on a full review of theories and methods of CEP and its influencing factors, from multi-disciplinary scientific perspective constituted of environment, management and economics, this paper attempted to discuss and construct the basic theory, principle and index system for the study of evaluation of CEP and its influencing factors. The paper took top 300 corporates (2007) in China as preliminary sample; We made great effort to search the related environmental, economic, and social information from every corporate's website, and then took an empirical analysis on the CEID of 82 corporates and CEP of 67 selected corporates, an evaluation system based on five key stakeholders of corporate is especially developed for the evaluation of influencing factors of CEP, and then multi-analysis method was used to find the contribution of every influencing factor to CEP, the interaction relationship between CEP and CFP was well diagnosed in the follow.The main research contents and conclusions could be summarized as the following:(1) Evaluation of CEID of large-scale coporates in China. The paper systematically investigated CEID of top 300 corporates (2007) in China based on internet data, and analyzed the whole situation of CEID of large-scale coporates at present and their difference in region and industry distribution, and disclosure form. It was showed that: the general condition of CEID of large-scale coporates was now in a poor status only 82 of 300 corporates carried out CEID action, which accounted for 27.33 percent, only 11.00 percent of corporates took the form of publishing environmental reports, and 27.33 percent of corporates took the form of special website; More traditional services coporates firstly published their social responsible reports in 2007; There were relatively obvious difference in region and industry; Some large-scale transnational coporates observed double standard in CEID.(2) Status quo evaluation and problem diagnosis of CEP of large-scale coporates in China. The paper attemptively constructed an index system and corresponding grading standard of CEP, taking 67 coporates who carried out CEID action as cases, and then made a ranking and general judge of large-scale coporates in current China, and diagnosed the characteristic difference in region and industry. It was showed that: the general situation of CEP should be improved urgently (the average score was only 48.63); There were clear differences both in CEP comprehensive index of corporates in different regions and CEP secondary index of corporates in different industries.(3) The influencing factors of CEP and the relationship between CEP and CFP. Based on the theory of corporate stakeholders, the paper attempted to construct a system of the influencing factors of CEP which based on five key stakeholders constituted by government, corporates, investors, consumers and communities. The impact on CEID and CEP from every stakeholder was comprehensively evaluated, and a profound analysis was specially made for the relationship between CEP and CFP and the influence factors of this relationship. It was showed that: the most important influencing factors of CEID were government environmental regulation and capability of corporate environmental management, however, consumers and communities didn't have significant effect on CEID. The corporates whose CEP were better tend to carry out more CEID, the capability of corporate environmental management contributed the most to CEP; A remarkable positive correlation was fund between CEP and CFP for most corporates; The regional area brought most appreciable impact of the relationship between CEP and CFP, which was positive correlation in developed areas, but no significant relationship in less developed areas.(4) The improvement strategies for CEP. Combining with the conclusions of the influencing factors of CEP, the paper proposed radical measures including three aspects as reinforcing government environmental regulation to promote coporates improves CEP at the law level; pushing standardized CEID to promote coporates improve CEP at the market level; and strengthening the public consciousness of coporates environmental behavior and environment-friendly products to promote coporates improve CEP at the society level.