Research On The Relationship Between Corporate Environmental Information Disclosure And Financial Performance

In recent years,environmental pollution incidents frequently occupy the news hot search,and the environmental and social problems brought by human beings in the process of promoting economic development are becoming increasingly serious.Although the iron and steel industry plays a pillar role in the growth and development of the national economy in the economic construction,its high pollution and high energy consumption characteristics in the production process are also extremely harmful to the environment and not conducive to the harmonious development of ecology.At present,with the continuous improvement of information identification ability of external information users of enterprises,their investment focus is not only on the profits of enterprises,but also attaches great importance to the impact of enterprise production and operation on the environment.Therefore,the iron and steel enterprises regularly and quantitatively disclose the information of various activities related to the environment,which can more clearly reflect the situation of their own environmental responsibility to the stakeholders.High quality environmental information of enterprises can not only prove their active participation in environmental protection,but also form a high-quality corporate image;It also provides information sources for stakeholders,so that they can fully understand the implementation of the company’s environmental protection activities in time,so as to make a more comprehensive and accurate measurement of the company’s value,and reduce the unfair degree of market transactions caused by the difference in information acquisition between enterprises and external information users.The financial performance of the enterprise reflects the operating efficiency of the enterprise.This paper studies the relationship between environmental information disclosure and financial performance of iron and steel enterprises,so that enterprises realize the importance of maintaining a stable relationship between the two,realize energy saving and emission reduction production,and improve the overall efficiency of the enterprise.Do to this research background,this paper refers to the previous literature on environmental information disclosure and financial performance,based on the theory of triple bottom line,stakeholders,signal transmission and so on,puts forward some hypotheses about the relationship between environmental information disclosure level and financial performance.By selecting A-share listed steel companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2014 to 2019 as samples,the environmental information in annual report,social responsibility report and sustainable development report is collected.At the same time,according to the characteristics of pollution discharge and heavy assets in the production and operation of China’s iron and steel industry,this paper constructs an environmental information disclosure evaluation system in line with the characteristics of China’s iron and steel industry,selects indicators and establishes a model for empirical research,and draws relevant conclusions.The results show that:(1)The overall level of environmental information disclosure of iron and steel enterprises is above average,but there is a big gap in the quality of environmental information disclosure between companies.(2)Company size and growth rate of operating income have a positive impact on the level of environmental information disclosure,while asset liability ratio has a negative correlation with the level of environmental information disclosure.(3)Environmental information disclosure has a positive effect on the financial performance of enterprises,and can have a positive impact on the financial performance lagging behind one period.Finally,according to the theoretical and empirical analysis,the paper puts forward relevant suggestions and countermeasures according to the classification of subjects:(1)The government should formulate and improve the relevant laws and regulations of environmental information disclosure party,and further strengthen the environmental supervision and management system.(2)The enterprise shall set up an environmental supervision group and issue a separate environmental information report.(3)The public and media should actively participate in the supervision of environmental information disclosure,and investors should bring environmental information into the scope of enterprise value evaluation.