Study On Environmental Accounting Information Disclosure In Chinese Coal Listed Companies

In order to accelerate the economic development, countries all over the world for natural resources start crazy plundering since the West’s Industrial Revolution. Due to the contempt and the pollyannaism for the environmental problems, people discharged various forms of pollution waste into the natural environment while ignoring the cost of mining and utilization of mineral and other natural resources. As time passes, the environmental issues began to highlight, including the abnormal climate, frequent natural disasters and a serious threat faced by the human living environment. At present, the environmental voices of the masses become more and more intense; the environmental issues have become a major global issue. According to expert studies,80%of the environmental pollution was caused by the enterprises. As the main bodies of the socio-economic development, the enterprises always chase economic interests excessively while ignoring the environmental benefits, which is the main reason of the environmental problems. Therefore, it is necessary to control the pollution caused by the enterprises in order to solve the environmental problems.As an important part of enterprise management systems, accounting can play a major role in the control of the environmental issues, so some scholars classified the studies in this respect as environmental accounting system. Environmental accounting is an accounting branch based on the theory of sustainable development and committed to reflect the interaction position of the enterprise and the environment into the corporate accounting. Environment accounting promotes the organic integration of economic and environmental interests, which can fully reflect the production and operation of the enterprises. As an important part of environmental accounting practice work, environmental disclosure plays a central role.China, one of the developing countries, has an urgent economic development will, which causes enormous consumption of natural resources. It is very significant to China’s overall development that how to balance both the economic and environmental issues. However, the introduction of the concept of environmental accounting in China is very late. There are still a variety of problems both in theoretical research and in practical aspect about the disclosure of corporate environmental accounting. Coal class industry, where production and business activities and the environment are closely related, is the pillar industry of China’s mining and energy. The relevant environmental issues must be fully appreciated. This article will analyze the problem of China’s coal enterprises environmental disclosure.This article is divided into five sections. The first section describes the background and purposes of the research and the research status of domestic and foreign scholars in related fields as well as research methods and ideas of the article. The second part describes the basic concepts of environmental accounting and environmental accounting information disclosure, three theoretical basis for environmental disclosure and the basic theory of stakeholder. In the third section, a mixed methodology of both qualitative and quantitative research is employed. Prospectus of25coal listed companies in Shanghai Stock Exchange, as well as their annual reports and environmental accounting information disclosed in a separate environmental report are input to statistical analysis to discuss the problems of environmental disclosure. In the forth section we analyze reasons of the existing problems about China’s coal listed companies environmental accounting disclosure, and put forward practical suggestions for improvement such as the establishment of environmental accounting information disclosure system and to strengthen the regulation of promotion. It is worth mentioning that separate disclosure of corporate environmental accounting information by environmental accounting balance sheet and income statement is the innovation of this paper. The fifth part is the conclusion part, including the main conclusions of this study.