Study On The Impact Of Corporate Governance To Environmental Performance

Over recent years, with the rapid economic and social development, a wide range of ecological degradation, complex environmental pollution, environmental issues and other environmental problems arising from resource development and utilization have increasingly been a global focus. The population growth, improvement of per capital consumption, rapid economic growth, development of heavy industry, accelerated urbanization, rapid development of future rural areas, increasingly intensified global climate changes and economic globalization, this new round of economic and social development imposes an enormous pressure on the country's ecology and environment. Therefore, the main roles in this new round of economic and social development, governments, enterprises and the public will play a crucial role in environmental issues respectively. Mining companies assume the important mission of providing resource guarantee for economic development. According to relevant measurement and estimation, mining companies support 70% of economic departments in China. Mineral resource listed companies are one of backbones of China's economic development. Their development is directly concerns the security of national resource supply as well as smooth implementation of resource strategies. Therefore, these firms play a pivotal role in the country's social and economic development.However, China's industrialization started late, low starting point, but faced with the rapid development of the situation, and China's mining industry is widely dispersed and mining companies refuse to invest in environmental technology and mining technology. The extensive development mode of previous mining enterprises characterized by of high energy consumption, high emission and low efficiency has led to the serious deterioration of China's ecological environment. On July 3, 2010, Zijinshan Copper Mine Hydrometallurgy Plant of Fujian Zijin Mining suffered copper acidic water leakage accident, which caused severe water pollution of Ding jiang section and posed a serious hazard on residents' life safety. This accident has aroused the deep thoughts and attention of government departments and relevant shareholders on environmental issues of mining enterprises. Currently, China is enduring the economic transformation. The new industrialized path will impose severe challenges on mining enterprises. Mineral resource companies, as the outstanding representatives of mining companies, are still faced with many problems, such as low efficiency of company government, insufficient attention to environmental protection, low environmental performance and a lack of marketing competitiveness, etc. The importance of mineral resource listed companies and complex of environmental issues determine the urgency of deeper research on the special enterprises.This paper, from the perspective of company government, studies the impact of company government mechanism on listed companies, thereby providing countermeasures and suggestions to improve mineral resource listed companies and proving decision-making support for effectively improving the environmental performance of mineral resource listed companies. This paper carries out researches in the following aspects:(1) This paper, with research object of Chinese mineral resource listed companies, uses stakeholder theory, resource-based theory, performance theory and the theory of circular economy to establish an environmental performance evaluation system with three dimensions, e.g., environmental management performance, environmental management performance and environmental financial performance by referring to environmental evaluation standards for listed companies set up by international organizations and development countries, combined the existing environmental laws and regulations as well as characteristics of mineral resource listed companies. With the use of level analysis, it determines the index weight and then conducts evaluation on listed companies' environmental performance according to their environmental information revealed in environmental information disclosure report, sustainable development report and annual report.(2) According to analysis results of data from 2012 to 2014, it looks for effective approaches from the perspective of improving the company governance. In line with the a symmetric information theory, principal-agent theory and sustainable development theory, it proposes 7 research assumptions based on analysis of the interrelation between corporate governance and its environmental performance. Then, it establishes regression model between ownership structure(including the nature of controlling shareholders, the sum of proportions of five major shareholders and the proportion of tradable shares) and the company's environmental performance as well as the regression analysis model between management incentive(including the shareholding of GM and the sum of the salary of three top senior managers).Based on the above theoretical analysis and empirical research, it reaches the following conclusions:(1) China's mineral resource listed companies' environmental performance continues to be improved year by year but the overall level is still low. The sample listed company just reaches the passing level by its average value of environmental performance. Thereof, the comprehensive energy consumption and environmental management costs are main factors affecting the environmental performance of the listed companies. Considerable differences can be found in different companies' investment in environmental protection, energy saving and emission reduction and reuse of water.(2) Through regression analysis, it reaches following conclusions:(1) State-owned mineral resource listed companies achieve better environmental performance than non-state-owned mineral resources listed companies;(2)The higher ownership concentration, the mineral resource listed companies have, the better environmental performance they achieve;(3)The increase of proportion of tradable shares is harmful to the improvement of environmental performance of mineral resource listed companies;(4)Separate power setting of chairman and general manager promotes the improvement of the environmental performance of mineral resource listed companies;(5)Increase of proportion of independent directors is beneficial for enhancement of environmental performance of mineral resource listed companies;(6) Equity incentive and high salaries for the general manager is conductive to the improvement of environmental performance of mineral resource listed companies.(3) For the existing problems including low environmental performance of non-state-owned mineral resource listed companies, concurrently serving chairman and GM, insignificant role of independent directors as well as equity incentives for management level, corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are proposed.Micro level for enterprises:(1)Establish strategy of sustainable development philosophy, adhere to the implementation of the Company's sustainable development model;(2)Establish the concept of technological innovation and development strategy, the development system of appropriate scientific and technological innovation;(3)Establish and improve the company's environmental emergency response mechanism;(4) Improve the modern enterprise system, establish the appropriate corporate governance structure and scientific decision-making;(5)Improve the management compensation system and assessment mechanism to improve performance incentives.Macro level for governments:(1)Improve mining management system and identify responsibilities of relevant supervision departments;(2) Improve environmental information disclosure mechanism and formulate a corporate environmental credit evaluation system;(3) Enhance relevant environmental protection laws and regulations to implement fair penalties and rewards.Through theoretical analysis and empirical research, it proposes corresponding countermeasures and suggestions for the identified problems so as to expect promote the improvement of the governance mechanism of mineral resources listed companies, thereby enhancing the environmental performance management of the mineral resource listed companies in China and urging them to develop constantly and robustly. Finally, it aims to realize the win-win results of economic benefits and environmental protection and ensures security of supply of national resources and smooth implementation of resource strategies.