Impact On The Carbon Information Disclosure Of Board Characteristics Under The Perspective Of Institutional Pressures

With the deepening development of low-carbon economy in China, how to better, faster, and more efficient to run low-carbon economic development mode, in order to achieve a win-win situation between the development of social economy and ecological environment protection, is the fundamental purpose of the Chinese government for speeding up the construction of ecological civilization system. The implementation of the new "environmental protection law" in January 1st in 2015 highlights the ambition and determination of China government of going on a low-carbon development path and building a green China. With the strengthening supervision requirements of greenhouse gas information disclosure of the listed enterprises by our government in the future, as high-energy consumption enterprises, except for seeking high profit of continuous operation, should also face the challenges brought by the emission of greenhouse gas, take actively part in the practices of dealing with the climate change. The carbon disclosure information is one of the most direct ways of embodying enterprise carbon reduction action, gradually attracts close attention of all over the society.This paper is based on the above backgrounds, under the increasingly harsh laws and regulations system, explored what is the relationship among institutional pressures, board characteristics and carbon disclosure. In this paper, on the basis of relevant literature review, first introduced theories closely related to the enterprise carbon disclosure such as the corporate governance theory, the new institutional theory, the legal theory and so on, explained and defined "institutional pressures", "board characteristics" and "carbon disclosure" and other related concepts. Then analyzed mechanism of action among institutional pressures, board characteristics and carbon information disclosure. The board characteristics including board size, proportion of independent directors, the number of meetings and the diversity of constitution of board. Thirdly, this paper selected the high-energy consumption of industrial enterprises listed in Shenzhen stock exchange as the empirical research samples, from 2011 to 2013, published social responsibility report details in three continuous years. The results showed:(1)listed corporation voluntary carbon disclosure quality is low in overall level; (2) the institutional pressures has significant positively effect on the quality of carbon information disclosure; (3) the size of the board has significant positively effect on the quality of carbon information disclosure; (4) the proportion of independent directors accounts for the positively effect on the quality of carbon information disclosure is not obvious;(5) the number of meetings accounts for the positively effect on the quality of carbon information disclosure is not obvious; (6) the diversity of constitution of board accounts for the positively effect on the quality of carbon information disclosure is not obvious;(7) the board size under the affection of institutional pressures, further strengthen the quality of carbon information disclosure. Finally, according to the research conclusion, this paper advised relevant suggestions on how to speed up the construction of carbon information disclosure system by related department and how to strengthen the board governance of listed corporation, hoping to provide a reference for improving the listed corporation carbon information disclosure quality in China.