Study On The System Of ESG Information Disclosure Of Listed Companies

In recent years,China’s food safety and environmental pollution cases have occurred frequently,and the contradiction between the interests of enterprises and public interests has intensified.For the listed companies involved occupy a large economic volume and are an important pillar of China’s national economy,if allowed to overflow will be particularly serious harm to social stability and economic development.In order to achieve effective regulation,China is paying more and more attention to the environmental and social responsibility information disclosure legal system of listed companies.At present,international organizations and institutions have put forward ESG concept,which focuses on environmental,social and governance at the same time in order to guide enterprises to pay attention to environmental protection,fulfilling social responsibilities and improving corporate internal governance capacity in the process of production and operation.The development of this concept has now become a universal global consensus,become increasingly mature in many developed countries and has launched a ESG rating to meet the information disclosure requirements.ESG evaluation has appeared in China.I found through data query that since the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange have joined the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchange initiative in 2017,although the disclosure of annual Corporate Social Responsibility reports(CSR reports)has increased,different rating agencies did not set unified standards for the content and weight of the ESG rating of the same subject and the evaluation of the main source of data was from voluntary reports,which lack of normative and strict data audit rules,so the rating results tended to have vary widely.Meanwhile,compared with the existing laws and regulations in China,it is found that the new Securities Law of China in2019 does not specify ESG disclosure requirements and the rules and guidelines issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission(CSRC)and the exchanges are of lower effectiveness,which are inconsistent with the development concept of green finance advocated by China and lag behind the concept of global sustainable development.However,the formulation of mandatory ESG disclosure rules may conflict with the core objective of investor protection in China’s current Securities La so that the formulation of voluntary ESG disclosure rules must first consider the insufficiency of China’s voluntary information disclosure system.In fact,Developing the ESG concept and constantly improving the ESG disclosure system are also an important practice content of other countries and regions as well as relevant international organizations and institutions.Based on the consistent development goals,Chinese mainland can learn from its essence to promote the continuous improvement and earlier implementation of China’s ESG disclosure system.The United States therein is one of the earliest countries to carry out mandatory disclosure of ESG information.Then,the United Kingdom’s model of "compulsory plus voluntary" has a long history and has a long history and has always been among the forefront of the world in its process of continuous innovation.Moreover,Chinese Hong Kong has a short development history but has made rapid progress.In particular,it is very flexible in the application of the comply or explain rule.Generally speaking,its development history should be of higher reference value to Chinese mainland,which also started relatively late.After comprehensive research,it is found that the following aspects should be taken into account to improve the ESG information disclosure system of listed companies in China.First of all,should improve the ESG disclosure legislation of listed companies,which is the most intuitive and instructive requirement.Second,we should standardize the specific content of ESG disclosure of listed companies in China,only when the regulations are specific enough can the upper design be implemented.Last but not least,standardizing the ESG disclosure procedure of listed companies is an inevitable requirement to improve the availability of ESG information.The article is divided into four chapters.The first chapter expounds the connotation and advantages of the system.This part aims to lay a legal foundation for this article by combing the basic connotation,nature and characteristics of ESG concept,and clarifying its basic theories,including information asymmetry theory,corporate social responsibility theory,social responsibility investment theory and stakeholder theory,and explaining the positive impact of the system on the development of enterprises,and then lays a theoretical foundation for the subsequent discussion of this article.The second chapter discusses the practice and problems of ESG disclosure system of listed companies in China.This part first clarifies the practices related to ESG information disclosure of listed companies in China by listing the requirements of ESG information disclosure rules of Chinese companies and analyzing the development trend in China.Then,it expounds the existing defects of ESG disclosure in China,including the deficiency of mandatory information disclosure rules,the deficiency of China’s voluntary information disclosure legal system,the disunity of disclosure content and form,the imbalance of disclosure requirements from the three levels of environment,social responsibility and corporate governance as well as the high institutional costs.The third chapter lists the practice of ESG disclosure of listed companies outside Chinese mainland and analyzes its advantages,disadvantages and its reference to us.In view of the problem of constructing the legal system of ESG information disclosure of listed companies in China proposed in Chapter 2,this part will focus on the design of ESG disclosure system of the United States,the United Kingdom and Chinese Hong Kong,respectively explain its highlights and shortcomings and provide more solid practical reference for studying the requirements of ESG disclosure of listed companies in Chinese mainland.The fourth chapter explores the suggestions on improving the legal system of ESG information disclosure in China.On the basis of integrating the research results of the first three chapters,this chapter will put forward suggestions from three aspects of perfecting legislation,standardizing disclosure contents and standardizing disclosure procedures.The first aspect includes the confirmation of mandatory disclosure rules and the improvement of voluntary information disclosure legal system at the legal level.The second aspect includes quantitative analysis of key performance indicators,the introduction of comply or explain rule,timely updating of guidelines or issuing supplementary guidelines and in-depth reference of guidance documents of relevant international organizations.The third aspect includes integrating the form of information disclosure and strengthening the supervision of information governance.