An Empirical Study On Carbon Disclosure Quality And Factors Of Listed Companies: Evidence From Heavy Polluting Industries In China

Under the background of the concept of sustainable development and thelow-carbon economic development model, carbon disclosure has attracted increasingattention of people from all walks of life, and our country also explores actively onlow carbon development path. Enterprises are not only the main participants in theeconomic activities, but also one of the main "killers" that have contributed to theglobal warming, and heavy polluting industries have their unshirkable responsibilities.The adverse impact of the business activities of heavy polluting industries onatmospheric environment should be attached importance to, and some correspondingmeasures to reduce the hazards should be taken. This paper researches the carbondisclosure quality of listed companies of heavy polluting industries in China and therelationship between the corporate governance structure, financial situation and thequality. The topic perspective is novel and viable in some degree. The study on carbondisclosure quality and its influencing factors is of great theoretical and practicalsignificance.Firstly, through access to domestic and international literature, some researchresults of domestic and overseas scholars on carbon disclosure are summarized. Inview of the present situation on carbon disclosure of listed companies of heavypolluting industries in China, the preliminary study motivation is described. Secondly,some related theoretical basis of carbon disclosure are respectively expounded, suchas the environmental economics theory, asymmetric information theory, signaltransmission theory and externality theory, which are used to make systematicforeshadowing for the subsequent empirical research to discuss the main motivationof carbon disclosure. On these bases, the carbon disclosure quality could be dividedinto two parts: whether the corporation discloses the social responsibility report and how the carbon disclosure index is. In this paper, carbon disclosure index is designedaccording to the CDP questionnaire, and the index value is calculated with referenceto the score method of the environmental disclosure index. Binary Logistic regressionand multiple linear regression are used to reveal the relationship between the carbondisclosure quality and the corporate governance structure and the financial situation,and then some reasonable proposals are brought forward.Through the empirical study, the conclusion is summed up as follows:(1) Through the descriptive statistical analysis, we can find that the carbondisclosure of heavy polluting industries in China is quite limited, the disclosurecaliber is inconsistent, and the contents are irregular, etc. There are significantdifferences between industries and companies.(2) After Binary Logistic regression analysis and multiple linear regressionanalysis, it is found that the company size, the properties of chairman and generalmanager, nature of equality, asset-liability ratio and return on equity have significanteffects on carbon disclosure quality. Among them, the larger company size, the higherthe enthusiasm of carbon disclosure. When Chairman and general manager is not thesame person, it has a promoting effect on carbon disclosure. State-owned companiesare more inclined to disclose information on carbon. Debt level is positivelycorrelated with carbon disclosure quality. Profitability is contrary to the expectationhypothesis, that is to say, the lower profitability of the enterprise will disclose morecarbon information.