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KEYWORDS
Carbon emissions,
Carbon information disclosure,
Listed companies
ABSTRACT
The paper aims to study corporate carbon information disclosure in the listed companies in China and to provide theoretical basis for businesses to disclose carbon information better and reduce GHG emission. In addition to analyze the information data of Chinese companies provided by CDP, the paper also analyzes the carbon information disclosure of 85 listed companies from different industries in the SSE. The effective laws, regulations and guidelines related to the environmental information disclosure are examined as well. The findings are as follows. Firstly, how to disclose the carbon information is seldom considered in the effective laws, regulations and guidelines. Secondly, the valuable information is not fully disclosed. Thirdly, there is inconsistent as far as how companies address this subject in their filings of annual reports, social responsibility reports, sustainable development reports and CDP questionnaires is concerned. The practical implication is that the majority of listed companies in China do not voluntarily disclose carbon information makes it difficult for stakeholders to assess how the companies will be affected by risks related to climate change. Therefore, regulatory authorities should clarify the application of existing law to the disclosure of carbon information, the development of mandatory disclosure standards at the corporate level should be considered, and it is necessary for companies to develop carbon reduction strategy and realize the importance of carbon information disclosure.
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1 Introduction
Scientists believe that global warming caused by carbon emissions of human has made the natural ecological environment and human life getting worse. From the view of climate change there is no difference in carbon emissions, but from the standpoint of international political, carbon emissions is not only an economic problem but a political issue. So, carbon information disclosure of listed companies has characteristics of economic and political and the quality of disclosure has become increasingly important in larger scope. Many foreign institutions and industries have begun to disclose carbon emissions information actively, such as Carbon Disclosure Projects (CDP). Along with the influence expanding of CDP in the world, The CDP data has been used in several research papers (e.g., Ans Kolk, David Levy and Jonatan Pinkse; 2008; Stanny and Ely; 2008; Reid and Toffel; 2009;...