Empirical Research on Factors Influencing Level of Environmental Protection Information Disclosure in Annual Reports by Listed Companies

Taking 248 A-share manufacturing listed companies in 2006 Shanghai Stock Exchange as example, using ＂index method＂ to measure level of environmental protection information disclosure, this paper examines the factors influencing level of environmental protection information disclosure. The findings show that the disclosure level has improved, but the overall level is still low and unable to satisfy information users; there is positive correlation between corporate size, industry type, accounting firm＇s type and corporate environmental disclosure index. The companies of large scale and heavy pollution and those audited by international ＂Big 4＂ and domestic ＂Big 10＂ accounting firms have a high level of environmental disclosure, while the profitability and financial leverage has no impact on the disclosure level. Finally some suggestions are put forward to establish environmental information disclosure system in China.     

Investment Risks of Agricultural Listed Companies from Visual Angle of Natural Disasters

The essential feature of agriculture is the interweavement of natural reproduction and economic reproduction. In recent years, the natural disasters have become more frequent and badly affect the production management and investment benefits. This problem has been an important risk in managing agricultural listed companies and cannot be ignored. It is of great importance to evaluate and prevent the risks of the natural disasters to enhance the competitive ability and increase the profits of those listed companies, thereby keeping the sustainable development of agricultural companies.     

Research on Indicator System of Regional Eco-efficiency:A Case Study of Chengyang District

Eco-efficiency is a valuable tool for managing and solving issues involving resource consumption and pollution emission in current production processes. Despite the popularity of the term “eeo-efficiency“ in business, limited attention has been paid to measuring and reporting regional eco-efficiency for local government policy makers. Based on the concept and method of eco-efficiency, an indicator system of regional eco-efficiency is established in this study. The indicator system comprises 22 indicators, which are divided in to three categories including socio-economic development, resources consumption,environmental pressure. As a promising statistical technique,principle component analysis is used to set the weight of indicators which attempts to calculate the eco-efficiency indices of Qingdao‘s Chengyang District. The results show that the eco-efficiency of Chengyang District has clearly improved 35.1% with small fluctuation from 1995 to 2003. Socio-economic development index and resources consumption index also represent obvious increasing trends. The correlation coefficient between soci-economic development index and resources consumption index is 0.979, which means the social progress and economic growth of Chengyang District depend on an extravagant consumption of resources. The environmental pressure index increased slowly before 1997 and declined gradually after 1997, due to more attention being paid to environmental protection by local government in recent years. Chengyang District still keeps the traditional economic development mode with a high consumption and high production, so the emphases of future development should put on improving the improving the efficient use of natural resources and promoting environmental management sustainability. The results show that the indicators system of regional eco-efficiency is a promising method to quantitatively evaluate resources and environmental efficiency and provide an effective decision-making support for local governments.     

Evaluation of ecotourism development in rural regions of China

The current status of ecotourism in rural China was analyzed in this paper.Empirical surveys covering the whole country indicate that ecotourism in rural China has attracted a large number of tourists who,however,didn’t generate revenues that can match the number.Although the environmental quality of those rural ecotourism destinations is high with little negative impacts,several problems have already appeared,suggesting a need to monitor those areas.The current practice of interpretation in most rural ecotourism destinations did not provide environmental education opportunities to the tourists.And local communities need more effective ways to decide on the prospects of local ecotourism development by themselves.Finally,a few recommendations for improving the sustainability of ecotourism destinations were provided.     

Study on Simulating Spatial Distribution and Varying Patterns of Urumqi＇s Population

In this paper, an approach to simulate the spatial distribution of urban population is proposed using urban land use and population statistical data through the geographical information systems （GIS）. Then, the spatial population distribution of Urumqi as a case is simulated by the approach mentioned above and its varying patterns are analyzed by the raster population surface. As a result, producing raster population surface is more accurate and natural than the traditional choropleth map of population density. Concerning the spatial population distribution of Urumqi, the population density declines from south to north and the population distribution mainly presents＇ ＂T-type＂, the population distribution presents multicentre agglomeration and the population distribution of the districts shows different features. The population density varies significantly with the increase in the distance from central business district （CBD）. Finally, it is found in this paper that the development history of districts, terrain and traffic road are main factors that have an influence Urumqi＇s population distribution. This paper tries to provide more accurate population data for the plan and management of urban land, traffic and public facilities in order to enrich the researches on urban population distribution.     

Uncertainty,Irreversibility and the Timing Problems of Environmental Policy

Most environmental issues and policy designing are uncertain and irreversible;therefore,the timing of environmental policy implementation becomes especially important.This paper establishes a random dynamic programming model and analyzes the optimal timing problems in environmental policy under uncertain variables.This model results indicate that two variables have a significant impact on the timing of environmental policy implementation and they work in opposite directions:on one hand,the more uncertain the economy is,the higher the cost of policies implementation will be,and consequently the incentive to immediately adopt the policy will be stronger.On the other hand,the higher the uncertainty of the environment is,the stronger the irreversibility of ecological harm caused by pollutants per unit will be.Therefore,the government should implement new environmental policies as early as possible in order to gain more ecological benefits.     

Estimating Ecological Value of Small Hydropower Using Contingent Valuation Method:An Application to Tongjiqiao Reservoir in Zhejiang Province,China

The small hydropower(SHP) will be less competitive in the absence of environmental value.The lack of information has become an important obstacle challenging decision-makers in resource-use choices.This paper is an application of contingent valuation method(CVM) in rural China to estimate the willingness-to-pay(WTP) for environmental services provided by exiting hydropower station.Using the single-bounded and dichotomouschoice CVM,the ecological value of Tongjiqiao Reservoir(TJQR) is estimated,and the annual mean WTPs of single-bounded and double-bounded CVM estimation are 141.05 and 219.52 Yuan(RMB)/a,respectively.The 95% confidence interval of annual WTP on an average is 118.47,166.79 Yuan(RMB)/a and 204.41,236.22(Yuan RMB)/a,respectively.In contrast,double-bounded model could obtain much more information of WTP of the investigated,thus reducing the confidence interval of estimation,and enhancing the estimation accuracy of the WTP.According to the estimated mean WTP of the double-bounded CVM,the total ecosystem service value of the TJQR is 15.54 million Yuan(RMB).Compared with the conventional electricity of fossil power and large hydropower,the SHP will be less competitive in the absence of non-market value,ignoring that the environmental impacts of existing SHP will undermine the healthy development of clean energy sector.     

Environmental Capital,Negative Externality and Carbon Finance Innovation

In the context of global climate change,the internalization of negative externality,which is brought about by the traditional mode of economic growth,has become an inevitable choice.In order to achieve the internalization,it is necessary to make innovations on the market mechanism and system,find the value of environmental capital,establish a new mode of economic growth based on environmental capital,and then transform the environmental capital,an exogenous factor of economic growth,into an endogenous factor.Of this,the key of market mechanism and system innovation is the financial innovation that is based on environmental capital and negative externality;the government defines the initial property right of environmental resources and establishes environment energy trading market,so as to guide enterprises to trade environmental resources(represented by carbon emission permit trading) based on the Clean Development Mechanism,and to vigorously develop environmental finance and carbon finance.     

Towards Sustainable Urban Environmental Management in Jiangyin city, East China

Dramatic economic and social changes have taken place in Jiangyin city due to rapid and uneven urbanization and industrialization. The environmental degradation has followed driven by these changes since the 1980's. With the pressures and effects of environmental deterioration, the city has implemented environmental management to hold back the trends of negative environmental changes. From the viewpoint of systems, DPSER is a good model for urban environmental changes to understand the causes, pressure, state, effect, existing responses and future action strategies. We took Jiangyin city, a developed city in South Jiangsu province, East China, as an example, and analyzed the characteristics of environmental changes and urban responses using DPSER model. Some operational strategies have been put forward to direct the city environmental management towards a sustainable road step by step.     

Life Cycle Assessment of Ultra-clean Micronized Coal Oil Water Slurry

Life cycle assessment is applied to assess the ultraclean micronized coal oil water slurry （UCMCOWS） with SimaPro and the environmental impact of UCMCOWS on its whole life cycle is also analyzed. The result shows that the consumption of energy and products are increasing along with the deepening of UCMCOWS processing, UCMCOWS making and combustion are the two periods which have a bigger impact on eco-system and human health. As a new substitute of fuel, UCMCOWS merits to be utilized more efficiently and reasonably.     

基于独立环境报告的中日石油企业环境绩效信息披露比较研究

有效的环境绩效信息披露是正确进行企业环境绩效评估的基础.本文首次依据全球报告倡议组织(GRI)<可持续发展报告指南>(2006年版)中的30个环境绩效指标,对中石油独立环境报告中环境绩效信息披露的研究发现,中石油环境绩效指标披露不完整,重要的核心指标披露情况更不理想,年度间纵向比较还出现了倒退;定性指标披露多于定量指标;体现企业积极行动和效果的内容和数据披露得相对较为详细;存在选择性披露问题,可比性较差,相关信息披露也较为散乱,不利于读者进行环境绩效评估.对此,我国企业应重视环境原始信息的收集和处理,将环境相关信息纳入企业日常的信怠管理系统,在披露方法上则应综合借鉴相关国际组织的做法并不断加以改进;政府监管部门也应对环境信息披露做出系统指引和规范,并积极推动环境报告审计的发展.     

Issue Cycles in Corporate Sustainability Reporting: A Longitudinal Study

Issue cycles in media reporting and in the coverage of environmental news in particular have been studied since the 1970s. This study seeks to extend existing theory on issue-attention lifecycles from the news-media domain to the corporate domain by exploring how companies operationalize environmental sustainability over time. Using computer-assisted text analysis, this study investigates 744 corporate environmental reports in a 10-year longitudinal design in order to study how the attention that companies pay to a set of 13 environmental issues shifts over this period. The results indicate discernible issue cycles for almost all of the issues studied. Some issues are in a phase of heightened awareness, others in a punctuated equilibrium following specific events, and even others in a phase of decline. The issue cycles identified suggest that companies pursue their environmental strategies consistently, but shift attention to particular issues as a response to high-profile environmental events. Policy-makers therefore need to be aware of the slowness of changes in corporate environmental strategies.     

Environmental sustainability disclosures in annual reports of ASX Industrials List companies

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Corporate environmental sustainability reporting (CESR) has been linked to the social license to operate, assisting companies in communicating their...     

企业环境信息披露的外部影响因素实证研究

本文以111家重污染行业的A股上市公司为样本,对企业环境信息披露的外部影响因素进行研究,对政府环保投入、公众环保意识、区域经济水平和社会监督水平等因素与企业环境信息披露水平之间的关系进行了理论分析和实证检验.研究结果显示:从整体上来说外部因素与企业环境信息披露水平呈负相关关系,说明现阶段企业环保工作所处的外部环境不容乐观;其中,区域经济发展水平与企业环境信息披露水平显著负相关;政府环保投入与企业环境信息披露水平显著正相关,但其影响程度随着经济发展水平的提高而减小;公众环保意识和社会监督水平对企业环境信息披露水平无显著影响.最后,提出了转变经济发展方式、加强政府宏观调控和完善企韭环境信息披露制度等政策建议.     

试论中国环境投资的市场化运作

针对政府财政资金不能满足环境投资资金的短缺现象及环境投资的低效率，本文从国民经济的宏观层面分析中国环境投资市场化运作的必要性与可能性。结合现实中国环境投资市场化运作中政府、排污企业及金融企业在环境治理中存在的非市场行为。指出应规范政府、排污企业的环境投资行为，使其成为理性的环境投资主体，同时还应培育新的环境投资主体——环境投资公司。最终理源环境保护市场内部的关系。     

A proposed framework to assess upstream supply chain sustainability

There are few methods that are suitable for assessing the sustainability of companies and supply chains in an integrated way, taking into consideration the economic, social and environmental dimensions. This paper proposes a framework for assessing the sustainability of individual companies and their corresponding upstream supply chain. The framework consists of a set of steps to evaluate the sustainability of both the individual company and their upstream supply chain. The linear aggregation technique is suggested to combine the set of indicators from the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability into a unique value, giving rise to a composite index for the company and corresponding supply chain. The proposed framework represents a contribution in the area of index construction and could be used as a valuable component of sustainability reporting and sustainability management practices. It also represents an important benchmarking tool, offering managers the possibility of identifying the supply chain partners that are best and worst performers in terms of sustainability while at the same time making it possible to improve company performance. Managers can adjust their company’s behaviour according to their sustainability index score and improve economic, social and environmental performance.     

Who cares about climate change reporting in developing countries? The market response to,and corporate accountability for,climate change in Bangladesh

Undoubtedly, climate change is one of the greatest problems facing today’s world. Despite this, traditional research has ignored the market response to, and accountability for, climate change reporting in developing countries. Hence, this study critically examines climate change reporting practices in the most affected countries in the world, with specific reference to Bangladesh. In the study, 32 semi-structured interviews and 71 annual reports are evaluated. Using legitimacy theory, the study contributes to building an understanding of companies’ attitude toward stakeholder accountability regarding climate change. The study finds that Bangladeshi companies are reporting climate change information on an average of 2.23 %. More specifically, the study demonstrates that large companies are reporting on more climate change issues than others because of their legitimized positions in the market. Again, a lack of regulation and a culture of low social accountability among the companies contribute to a very low level of disclosure on climate change. Surprisingly, multinationals are not providing satisfactory disclosure. The study has policy implications in developing countries for both local policy makers (the government) and international policy makers (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the European Union, the World Bank, the UN Environment Programme, the International Energy Agency and the World Economic Forum) as to how to engage local companies so that they become more socially accountable to climate change reporting.     

Evidence for the prevalence of the sustainability concept in European corporate responsibility reporting

This paper empirically examines the terminology used in the titles of corporate social responsibility (CSR)/sustainability reports in Europe. Our data supports the claim of the rise of the sustainability concept in corporate communication in comparison to other concepts. In detail this research analysed CSR/sustainability reports to support Matten and Moon’s [Acad Manage Rev 33(2):404–424, 2008] hypothesis regarding a recent European trend towards a more voluntary and explicit CSR practice. The second and main objective of the research was to describe statistically significant trends in the use of terms and concepts in CSR/sustainability reporting to better understand how European companies interpret CSR and sustainability and how they communicate it to their stakeholders. To this end, a content analysis was conducted on 329 CSR/sustainability reports from 50 leading European companies from Euro Stoxx 50 that were published between the beginning of online CSR/sustainability reporting in 1998 and 2010. Our data analysis clearly indicates that the use of social and environment-related terms occurred more frequently in the past and demonstrates the establishment of sustainability in corporate non-financial reporting. Based on the results of our empirical research, the final discussion explores the development and diffusion of the sustainability concept in both the academic and business fields and examines economic, environmental, and social implications. Different propositions are presented to explain the recent rise of the sustainability concept in European CSR/sustainability reporting, adding to the formation of sustainability as a concept and as a science.