A comparison of voluntary and mandated climate change-related disclosure

Perera, Luckmika; Jubb, Christine; Gopalan, Sandeep

doi:10.1016/j.jcae.2019.100157

Cited by 26 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…That is, some firms attempt to look good while doing and changing little (Garnett et al, 2015), commonly seen in greenwashing practices (Mahoney et al, 2013). Voluntary environmental disclosure is likely to play a significant role in gaining and maintaining legitimacy because companies want it to be perceived that they have taken their share of responsibility for the environment (Perera et al, 2019).…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perera et al (2019) is the only other Australian study that examines the relationship between environmental disclosure and environmental performance in the context of emissions disclosure captured under the NGER Act. However, this study differs in that it covers a much more recent period of the Act's operations (2016 and 2017), whereasPerera et al (2019) cover the first 3 years of operation(2009)(2010)(2011).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Corporate climate‐related voluntary disclosures: Does potential greenwash exist among Australian high emitters reports?

2021

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This study examines the issue of greenwashing among corporate high emitters subject to government scrutiny. To do so, we investigate the relationship between the actual environmental performance, measured as carbon emissions, of companies subject to the Australian National Greenhouse Energy Reporting Act 2007 (NGER) and their climate-related voluntary disclosures. To measure climate-related disclosure, we construct a climate-related disclosure index based on four prominent frameworks and score corporate report content against that Index. Using a sample of 150 companies with NGER emissions data for Years 2016 and 2017, a period that precedes the issuance of recommendations for disclosure by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), our regression results show a disappointingly low level of climate-related disclosure by most companies. We also find a negative relationship between climate-related disclosure and 1-year lagged environmental performance among companies exhibiting a year-on-year rise in carbon emissions. That is, our findings provide evidence of potential greenwashing by poor environmental performers, presumably to change negative perceptions by stakeholders, as predicted by socio-political theories. In contrast, we find no evidence of greenwashing among companies experiencing a year-on-year decrease in emissions.

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Section: Literature Review and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Corporate climate‐related voluntary disclosures: Does potential greenwash exist among Australian high emitters reports?

2021

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“…More recent studies in Australia explored the quality and comparability of carbonrelated information as well as the link between carbon-related disclosure and corporate performance in relation to carbon emissions [27,46,[52][53][54]. Reference [46] examined the effect of carbon emissions on corporation's value in the stock market and found negative effect in the corporations with low carbon disclosure.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It could be argued that a company's legitimacy is under threat if it cannot respond to the demands of a low carbon economy. According to legitimacy theory, when organisations are concerned about being accused of illegitimate operations, they are more likely to provide environmental information in order to justify their activities [29,53,68,69]. Numerous prior studies show that after a significant environmental event or legislative change, the level of disclosure rises.…”

Section: Government Reform and Regulatory Changes To Carbon Emissions...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Government Reform, Regulatory Change and Carbon Disclosure: Evidence from Australia

2021

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This paper examines the effect of two Australian environmental regulatory changes, specifically the Clean Energy Act (CEA) 2011 and the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Act 2007 with reference to voluntary corporate carbon disclosure practices. In doing so, it describes the brief history of this carbon-related regulatory change, its scope, enforcement criteria and corporations’ disclosures. This is a longitudinal analysis of 219 annual reports of 73 listed corporations in Australia which were subjected to carbon tax and report carbon emissions as per the CEA 2011 and NGER Act 2007 accordingly. Any corporation or facility that emitted scope 1 emissions of 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) or more were liable for a carbon tax in accordance with CEA 2011. Drawing on stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory, this study uses content analysis to examine corporate carbon disclosure. The findings suggest there is a considerable increase in the number of carbon-related disclosures following these regulations being enacted as law. In addition, carbon-specific communication has become much more prevalent and accounts for a larger proportion of the sampled organisations’ reported environmental information. The results of this study enrich the validity of the hypothesis that organisations would seek to legitimise their operations to stakeholders by increasing their environment-related declarations. The evidence presented in the analysis confirms the assertion that government environmental legislation/regulation has a positive impact on corporate behaviour and accountability. These findings have significant consequences for the government, decision-makers and the accounting profession, indicating that regulatory guidance enhances both mandatory and voluntary disclosure. It also offers key insights into the possible impacts of the carbon regulatory change for future research to consider.

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“…Why do some companies disclose high-quality environmental information, while others are poor? Previous studies have found that many factors may lead to this situation, such as environmental performance [2], media attention [3], government regulation [4], and so on. The theoretical research and empirical research on environmental accounting information disclosure are extensive, but most of the studies are based on developed countries [1,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Information Disclosure and Financial Performance – Empirical Evidence from Heavily Polluting Industries in China

Shen

Chen

2021

E3S Web Conf.

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Focusing on the quality of corporate environmental accounting information disclosure (EID), this paper attempts to explore the impact of financial performance on environmental information disclosure. We take listed companies in Chinese heavily polluting industries as the research object, and construct a multiple regression model for data analysis via SPSS. According to Chinese practice, we divide the financial indicators into four areas: solvency, operating capacity, profitability and development capacity, and select four indicators to represent them. The empirical results show that net working capital, current asset turnover and equity growth rate are positively correlated with EID, and return on total assets is negatively correlated with EID. This result means that the solvency, operating ability and development ability in financial performance can promote the improvement of EID, but profitability cannot.

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A comparison of voluntary and mandated climate change-related disclosure

Cited by 26 publications

References 83 publications

Corporate climate‐related voluntary disclosures: Does potential greenwash exist among Australian high emitters reports?

Corporate climate‐related voluntary disclosures: Does potential greenwash exist among Australian high emitters reports?

Government Reform, Regulatory Change and Carbon Disclosure: Evidence from Australia

Environmental Information Disclosure and Financial Performance – Empirical Evidence from Heavily Polluting Industries in China

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