Study On Auditing Governance In Greenwashing Behavior Of Enterprises

Ecological prosperity promotes the prosperity of civilization and civilization promotes the prosperity of China.In the process of building a beautiful and harmonious China,environmental problem has become an urgent problem to be solved.Under the requirement of sustainable development concept,it is urgent to regulate enterprises’ behavior to save natural resources and protect ecological environment.Green development puts higher requirements on enterprises to fulfill their environmental responsibility.However,under high pressure,some enterprises fail to fulfill their environmental responsibility but choose to greenwashing.Greenwashing is the deviation between symbolic and substantive behaviors of enterprises,and it is an opportunistic behavior of enterprises after they realize the importance of environmental problems.Moreover,with the expansion of the scope of greenwashing,it has been extended from product marketing to information disclosure.Many enterprises whitewash their environmental information out of impression management strategy,which has a negative impact on ecological civilization construction and economic sustainable development.Therefore,it is urgent to strengthen the auditing governance of enterprises’ greenwashing behavior and give play to the important role of auditing in economic development and environment protection.Based on this background,this paper takes environmental information disclosure as the entry point to study the auditing governance in enterprises’ greenwashing behavior.First of all,the literature review summarizes the definition,causes,hazards,treatment measures of greenwashing behavior,as well as the concept,main body,function of environmental auditing and the relationship between environmental auditing and ecological civilization construction.On this basis,it is clarified that auditing,as a high-level economic supervision system,should play an important role in greenwashing governance.The theoretical foundation part introduces the theory of impression management,the theory of fiduciary economic responsibility and the theory of externality,which provides theoretical support for the analysis of impression management motivation of enterprises’ environmentalinformation greenwashing behavior and the role of auditing governance in enterprises’ greenwashing behavior.Secondly,based on impression management theory,this paper uses the greenwashing degree measurement index to rate the chemical industry enterprises’ environmental reports(or environmental sections)from 2010 to 2018 in China’s A-share listed companies.The result shows that the greenwashing degree of environmental information disclosure is more serious,all the samples exist selective disclosure,and the declarative manipulation situation is also serious.On this basis,the realistic demand of greenwashing governance becomes clearer.Then,with the change of the environment of auditing and the evolution of auditing goal,the functions and function area of auditing expanded gradually,the mechanism of auditing governance in enterprises’ greenwashing behavior becomes clearer.Combine the theoretical basis and realistic demand,this paper proposes the auditing governance path in enterprises’ greenwashing behavior: national audit institution carries out environmental policy follow-up auditing and economic responsibility auditing from green perspective,internal audit department carries out environmental ethics auditing and internal control auditing of environmental matters,social audit organization enhances consideration of environmental matters in financial auditing and carries out third-party certification of environmental reports.Through the integration of information and technology in the three parties,the cooperation of audit subjects,audit methods,audit objectives and audit contents can be achieved and the greenwashing governance can achieve the effect of 1+1+1>3,which is embodied in: cover the whole process of economic activities of the enterprises,give full play to the function of prevention,supervision,evaluation and verification,prevent selective disclosure and expression manipulation of environmental information at the same time,ensure the authenticity,compliance and effectiveness of environmental related activities,the auditing achievements can be used mutually.In addition,this paper puts forward corresponding safeguard measures and policy suggestions for the auditing governance path mentioned above.Finally,this paper takes ST Yihua as an example to carry out case analysis and discussion,through rating it’s environmental section,found that it’s degree of greenwashing of environmental information is more serious.Moreover,environmental pollution accidents havebeen exposed frequently in recent years.Further analysis showed that the reasons were the lack of environmental friendly corporate culture,environmental policy and systems are not in place and the lack of evaluation and verification of environmental performance.Aiming at the greenwashing behavior and reasons,this paper designs the integrated working pattern of ST Yihua’s greenwashing management.By analyzing the greenwashing problem of enterprises and proposing the greenwashing auditing governance path,this paper hopes that auditing can play a more important role in greenwashing governance,urge enterprises to fulfill their environmental responsibilities,standardize the disclosure of corporate environmental information,curb enterprises’ greenwashing behavior,push forward the construction of ecological civilization.