The Study On Environmental Performance Information Disclosure Of Listed Companies

With the surge of global environmental consciousness and view of green consumption, tariff barrier being replaced by green barrier, enterprises would accountable for environmental protection, instead of the default of the economic status for sustainable development idea. As an important tool for managing economy and protecting environment, the environmental accounting provides an perspective on enviromental information disclosure, on which the research would count more for sustainable development. Thus the issues of enviromental performance and disclosure are emerging as hot topics at home and internationally.This article would be commited to answer two questions: one for how the listed companies who play an importmant role in enviromental and resource-consuming issues enviromently perform, the other for how and which factors drive these information are revealed in the heavy pollution industries. This paper relies on humanities & social sciences project in Sichuan province subject ". The research on environmental performance information disclosure of China enterprises" (10SA099), to the heavy pollution industry in China listed companies (A shares) three successive years from 2007-2009 of data as samples. Meanwhile It is furthered to explore the impact from such multiple forces as corporate governance structure, firm size, profitability, equity properties, and financial leverage. The whole study formulates its framework from theory, through reality to orientation design and suggestion. The main content is as follows:The proposing questions part. On the basis of introduction background,we state theoretical foundation for the paper ,putting forward the necessity and research significance of environmental performance information disclosure as theoretical sources of our study.By the analysis on the literature and present situation of other countries,we bring forward the main questions studied in this paper.The analysing problems part.The content can be divided into two parts.The first part is about the analysis of the present situation,highlighting the basic situation about environmental performance information disclosure in heavy pollution industry in China, ,such as the content,level,way and resource and so on to disclose. The study addresses on the construction of the laws and analyses the existing problems in environmental performance information disclosure in our country. The second part is empirical test. This part tests various factors which can affect listed companies behavior of heavy pollution industry in China and gives theoretical explanations for the empirical results.The solving problems part. We propose recommendation about environmental performance information disclosure system for the listed companies by analyzing the present situation and empirical test. By researching on the environmental performance of listed companies in heavy polluting industry ,we draw some useful conclusions:Through such statistics analysis as quantity disclosure,real controlled trait,sector distribution and disclosure level, arguments are listed as follows: the quantity of badly polluted enterprises in revealing environmental performance are in the process of year-on-year climbing during the period between 2007 and 2009, the listed companies regulators issuing the guidance policy of the disclosure play a positive role; the heavy pollution enterprises hardly disclose their environmental performance information, since the consciousness is not matching; state-owned companies is the subject of disclosure on environmental performance information, the non-state- owned holding company are also gradually to increase; those listed companies who do accessible harm to environment and produce large costs of natural resources such as metallurgical and chemical industry hit the top in revealing environmental performance information; the disclosure of environmental performance information for those listed companies is not encompassed with comprehensive metrics except slight volume companies covered, the disclosure on their peirformance data level and for the state-owned enterprise is higher than that for non-state-enterprises and for state-owned companies the mandatory disclosure level also higher than voluntary disclosure level.Through the construction of multivariate regression models of heavy pollution industry in China, this work makes an empirical analysis of 416 sample datum. It demonstrates that: the larger companies engage higher attention from public and regulators that consequently press much above par and thus make their information more transparent than small sizes. The company financial performance and environmental performance information disclosure level negatively correlated. That is due to those management tools may cost enterprise high to suffer from embarrassed financial confrontation. in environmental management or information disclosure need additional teams of financial resources in enterprises limited and pay the corresponding cost, enterprise in competition of financial condition; when the company financial risk is higher, investors and owners would pay the extensive concern for it, so operators will focus on internal control, social responsibility activities will be contained; the level of the disclosure for environmental performance is positively correlated with the proportion of outstanding shares. The higher percentage shares outstanding, the more effective supervision insiders are subjected to. The disclosure turns tobe an obligation for enterprises to achieve full confidence from stakeholders. Outside the management information to gain trust of stakeholders and environmental performance information disclosure level is matching.Through the status analysis of the results and the empirical results thinking, this article provides suggestions about restraint mechanism for enterprise enviroment performance disclosure from the capital markets, legal protection, external supervision and internal supervision. On a smaller scale, establishing an effective capital market to improve consciousness of investors' environmental performance is to correctly mirror firm image match for market value in capital market. Secondly, it also can promote construction of laws and regulations on environmental information of publicly listed company. Through these measures we benefit from strengthening corporate disclosure act, meanwhile it guarantees people the right to acquire concerning information so as to gradually complete environment information disclosure system. Thirdly, to build long-term effective supervision mechanism is the premise of realisation of dual supervision on the listed companies and regulators; the last point is that to improve the governance and internal control on listed companies is to enhance the enviromental performance disclosure level of listed companies .