The Research On The Relationship Between Company Characteristics And Carbon InformationDisclosure

Climate change which is created by greenhouse gas emission is deeply influencing human’s existence and development. Carbon information disclosure gains more and more concern and attention from government, enterprise, academic field and the public. In the current circumstance, the study of the current situation and influencing factors of Chinese listed companies can promote Chinese company to improve the level of carbon information disclosure. This is not only beneficial to the sustainable development of the company, but also to better regulate enterprises to fulfill their responsibilities of energy-saving and emission-reduction for regulators.In order to objectively evaluate the level of carbon information disclosure, explore the main factors in Chinese heavy polluting industries listed companies. Firstly, the method of document analysis is applied in this paper to review and analyze the research about carbon accounting and carbon information disclosure home and abroad. Then, this paper states social responsibility theory, stakeholder theory, asymmetric information theory, signaling theory and legitimacy theory, which provide theory support for further empirical research. On the basis of these theory, by using the method of data collection, this paper selects 336 heavy polluting industries listed companies as samples in shanghai stock A market to make statistics about the carbon information which is disclosed from 2012- 2014 annual reports, we describe from annual and industry to analyze the overall level of carbon information disclosure of the listed companies in heavy polluting industry, we make empirical test to examine the factors which influence the level of carbon accounting information disclosure from the features of financial structure characteristics, performance characteristics, market characteristics.Through the descriptive statistics from annual and industry, we find the overall level of the carbon information disclosure in Chinese heavy polluting industries listed companies is lagging behind. Difference between industries is large, disclosure content is scattered and the format is unified. Through multivariate regression analysis of sample companies, we draw the following conclusions: company size, debt level is significantly positively correlated with the level of carbon information disclosure; company growth ability and listed years is negatively correlated with the level of carbon information disclosure; the four variables in the regression results pass the verification, and keep consistent with the hypotheses, earning capacity and auditing authority is uncorrelated with the level of carbon information disclosure, doesn’t keep consistent with the hypotheses.Based on theoretical study and empirical research, this paper puts forward the suggestion from the views of improving the level of carbon research, establishing relevant laws and regulations, strengthening supervision of government and society, enhancing public awareness of low-carbon environment. Through the above measures, we can expand in-depth research in this field; enhance listed companies’ ability of carbon accounting information disclosure.