title: Corporate environmental transparency in China

authors: Cai, Wei

subjects: Corporate Environmental Transparency (CET)

abstract: The intensification of the environmental crisis has led stakeholders to pay increasing attention to corporate environmental transparency (CET). One obvious manifestation of this interest is that they require companies to present openness and disclose various information related to the environment. As an influential stakeholder group, policy-makers have also attached greater significance to the adoption of environmental policies based on information disclosure. For example, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), whose objective is to develop global sustainability disclosure standards, was established at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). In policy-making practice, transparency is often advocated as a prerequisite for legitimacy, policy efficiency, and good governance.
The direction of accounting research is often inextricably linked to changes in the field of practice. In recent years, the concept of transparency has attracted extensive attention among accounting scholars. However, current research tends to use corporate environmental disclosure as a measure of corporate transparency. In the context of the general absence of environmental disclosure regulation, and therefore of standardised (and comparable) disclosures, this trend is highly controversial. Some scholars have critically commented that in addition to corporate environmental disclosure, there are other channels, such as government websites, media news reports, etc., through which to make corporate environmental information transparent to the public.
As the country with the world’s highest share of carbon emissions, China is determined to accelerate various reform measures to achieve the carbon neutrality it has committed to reaching by 2060. Since 2017, China has implemented a mandatory environmental disclosure policy to promote the environmental transparency of listed companies and in so doing provides a promising policy environment and comparable standards for conducting CET research. Therefore, as a response to the academic call for more studies on the complex concept of transparency in the environmental accounting field, this thesis focuses particularly on the concept of CET and its related practices in the Chinese context.
The objective of this thesis is to develop a measure of CET and to apply that measure to assess both the environmental transparency of listed companies in China and the impact environmental transparency has on corporate financial performance. Furthermore, the thesis also aims to gain an in-depth understanding of the internal and external driving forces behind CET. To achieve this goal, the thesis set five specific research objectives and asked five research questions. Meeting these objectives and answering these questions involved both finding empirical results (such as correlations) and searching for explanations to gain a deeper understanding of causal mechanisms.
Driven by its research objectives and questions, this thesis follows a pragmatism philosophical stance. This paradigm can reconcile the contradiction between research objectives which stems from the long-standing subjective and objective debate between positivism and constructivism. In addition, pragmatism is regarded as providing philosophical and theoretical elements of mixed methods research design that lend mixed research argumentative coherence and validity. Therefore, a mixed research design is chosen for this thesis because the application of both quantitative and qualitative research methods contributes to a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the subject (i.e., CET) of the thesis. 
Guided by the mixed methods research design, this thesis consists of quantitative and qualitative investigations. There are two main findings in the quantitative investigation. First, the environmental transparency of Chinese listed companies does not meet the expectations of policy-makers. This finding is based on the assessment of CET in the Chinese context. Specifically, the mandatory environmental disclosure policy is not well followed; listed companies are suspected of concealing information about significant environmental administrative penalties, and there is a strong sense of mistrust among stakeholder groups towards corporate environmental disclosure, etc. Second, a significant negative correlation between CET and corporate financial performance was obtained through regression analysis on the sample companies. That finding shows that in the short term greater environmental transparency means higher environmental resource allocation, which in turn affects resource inputs in the production process and consequently has a negative impact on profits.
In addition, the qualitative investigation identifies the internal and external driving factors behind CET in the Chinese context. First, the internal driving forces are accountability and impression management. The interviewees suggest that, while society’s awareness of corporate environmental accountability is the starting point of CET-related practices, an underlying motivation for these practices is impression management. It is worth mentioning that whether or not the board of directors is an internal driving force behind CET is still controversial. Second, the external driving forces are regulation and stakeholder pressure. The interviewees generally agree that it is the government and its regulatory policies that have an overwhelming influence on CET in the Chinese context. In addition, stakeholder groups, such as investors, the public, third parties, and industrial competitors, are thought to exert varying degrees of pressure to have CET in China.
The findings of this thesis have rich theoretical and practical implications. In terms of theoretical implications, this thesis not only supports and develops legitimacy and signalling theories in the environmental disclosure field, but also expands the application scope of stakeholder theory. In addition, the thesis indicates that government intervention theory may have strong explanatory power in the Chinese context. In terms of practical implications, several recommendations are made to environmental policy-makers. For example, legal requirements for mandatory environmental disclosure should be considered; environmental disclosure items need to be improved; reward and penalty mechanisms need to be established; environmental assurance standards need to be developed; and, green financial policies need to be optimised.
The findings of this thesis also contribute to existing knowledge. First, the thesis contributes new evidence to the argument that corporate environmental disclosure does not fully represent transparency. Second, the thesis establishes a conceptual framework for CET and contributes a measure of CET and so responds to the calls for more work that reviews existing research on transparency and which explores its measure and significance. Third, the thesis extends the existing studies on CET in emerging economies. Finally, the empirical finding in this thesis expands the previous literature on the relationship between CET and corporate financial performance, thus making an important contribution to knowledge.
This thesis sheds light on future research potential. In light of the exploratory nature of its qualitative investigation, there are still several unknown issues that require further academic attention, such as how much explanatory power the impression management perspective has on the CET, whether and to what extent the board of directors influences CET, and, how exactly peer pressure affects CET, etc. In addition, another promising direction would be to explore what consequences CET can have for companies over a long period of time, as the green transformation often takes a relatively long time to achieve. Future research on the long-term impact of CET will help to understand the true mechanisms of CET’s effect on companies.

text: Corporate environmental transparency in China The intensification of the environmental crisis has led stakeholders to pay increasing attention to corporate environmental transparency (CET). One obvious manifestation of this interest is that they require companies to present openness and disclose various information related to the environment. As an influential stakeholder group, policy-makers have also attached greater significance to the adoption of environmental policies based on information disclosure. For example, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), whose objective is to develop global sustainability disclosure standards, was established at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). In policy-making practice, transparency is often advocated as a prerequisite for legitimacy, policy efficiency, and good governance.
The direction of accounting research is often inextricably linked to changes in the field of practice. In recent years, the concept of transparency has attracted extensive attention among accounting scholars. However, current research tends to use corporate environmental disclosure as a measure of corporate transparency. In the context of the general absence of environmental disclosure regulation, and therefore of standardised (and comparable) disclosures, this trend is highly controversial. Some scholars have critically commented that in addition to corporate environmental disclosure, there are other channels, such as government websites, media news reports, etc., through which to make corporate environmental information transparent to the public.
As the country with the world’s highest share of carbon emissions, China is determined to accelerate various reform measures to achieve the carbon neutrality it has committed to reaching by 2060. Since 2017, China has implemented a mandatory environmental disclosure policy to promote the environmental transparency of listed companies and in so doing provides a promising policy environment and comparable standards for conducting CET research. Therefore, as a response to the academic call for more studies on the complex concept of transparency in the environmental accounting field, this thesis focuses particularly on the concept of CET and its related practices in the Chinese context.
The objective of this thesis is to develop a measure of CET and to apply that measure to assess both the environmental transparency of listed companies in China and the impact environmental transparency has on corporate financial performance. Furthermore, the thesis also aims to gain an in-depth understanding of the internal and external driving forces behind CET. To achieve this goal, the thesis set five specific research objectives and asked five research questions. Meeting these objectives and answering these questions involved both finding empirical results (such as correlations) and searching for explanations to gain a deeper understanding of causal mechanisms.
Driven by its research objectives and questions, this thesis follows a pragmatism philosophical stance. This paradigm can reconcile the contradiction between research objectives which stems from the long-standing subjective and objective debate between positivism and constructivism. In addition, pragmatism is regarded as providing philosophical and theoretical elements of mixed methods research design that lend mixed research argumentative coherence and validity. Therefore, a mixed research design is chosen for this thesis because the application of both quantitative and qualitative research methods contributes to a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the subject (i.e., CET) of the thesis. 
Guided by the mixed methods research design, this thesis consists of quantitative and qualitative investigations. There are two main findings in the quantitative investigation. First, the environmental transparency of Chinese listed companies does not meet the expectations of policy-makers. This finding is based on the assessment of CET in the Chinese context. Specifically, the mandatory environmental disclosure policy is not well followed; listed companies are suspected of concealing information about significant environmental administrative penalties, and there is a strong sense of mistrust among stakeholder groups towards corporate environmental disclosure, etc. Second, a significant negative correlation between CET and corporate financial performance was obtained through regression analysis on the sample companies. That finding shows that in the short term greater environmental transparency means higher environmental resource allocation, which in turn affects resource inputs in the production process and consequently has a negative impact on profits.
In addition, the qualitative investigation identifies the internal and external driving factors behind CET in the Chinese context. First, the internal driving forces are accountability and impression management. The interviewees suggest that, while society’s awareness of corporate environmental accountability is the starting point of CET-related practices, an underlying motivation for these practices is impression management. It is worth mentioning that whether or not the board of directors is an internal driving force behind CET is still controversial. Second, the external driving forces are regulation and stakeholder pressure. The interviewees generally agree that it is the government and its regulatory policies that have an overwhelming influence on CET in the Chinese context. In addition, stakeholder groups, such as investors, the public, third parties, and industrial competitors, are thought to exert varying degrees of pressure to have CET in China.
The findings of this thesis have rich theoretical and practical implications. In terms of theoretical implications, this thesis not only supports and develops legitimacy and signalling theories in the environmental disclosure field, but also expands the application scope of stakeholder theory. In addition, the thesis indicates that government intervention theory may have strong explanatory power in the Chinese context. In terms of practical implications, several recommendations are made to environmental policy-makers. For example, legal requirements for mandatory environmental disclosure should be considered; environmental disclosure items need to be improved; reward and penalty mechanisms need to be established; environmental assurance standards need to be developed; and, green financial policies need to be optimised.
The findings of this thesis also contribute to existing knowledge. First, the thesis contributes new evidence to the argument that corporate environmental disclosure does not fully represent transparency. Second, the thesis establishes a conceptual framework for CET and contributes a measure of CET and so responds to the calls for more work that reviews existing research on transparency and which explores its measure and significance. Third, the thesis extends the existing studies on CET in emerging economies. Finally, the empirical finding in this thesis expands the previous literature on the relationship between CET and corporate financial performance, thus making an important contribution to knowledge.
This thesis sheds light on future research potential. In light of the exploratory nature of its qualitative investigation, there are still several unknown issues that require further academic attention, such as how much explanatory power the impression management perspective has on the CET, whether and to what extent the board of directors influences CET, and, how exactly peer pressure affects CET, etc. In addition, another promising direction would be to explore what consequences CET can have for companies over a long period of time, as the green transformation often takes a relatively long time to achieve. Future research on the long-term impact of CET will help to understand the true mechanisms of CET’s effect on companies.

year: 2022

title: Sea-level change: Living with uncertainty

authors: de Lange, Willem P.

abstract: Sea level change is a naturally occurring process. Since the last glacial maximum, some 18,000 years ago, de-glaciation has taken place and this natural global warming has led to sea-level rise of on average 120 m or so. At some times, pulses of melt water coming from large peri-glacial lakes led to rates of sea-level rise as high as 3 m per century. The rate slowed down some 7000 years ago and since then has been naturally fluctuating by only a few meters. The remaining global sea-level rise has been about 20 cm in the 20th century. Has this led to global disasters? The answer is no. If the projected rise over the 21st century is double what was seen in the 20th, is it likely that it will result in global disasters? Again, the answer is most likely no; human ingenuity, innovation and engineering, and the proper material and financial resources should solve local problems if and when they arrive, as they have in the 20th century (see the Dutch example). 
In this short and accessible monograph, Willem de Lange and Robert Carter describe and explain sea-level change, including the many remaining uncertainties in our full understanding of what exactly drives this change, and discuss the implications, mainly regarding coastal management. The monograph is intended for policy makers, but it should be informative for any educated reader. De Lange and Carter analyse the causes of sea-level change, and describe how it has been measured – with tide gauges over the past 100 to 150 years and from satellites over the past 30 years. Their key message is to recall that sea-level change is a local phenomenon, with high variability and multiple causes. In the 20th century, for a global average rise of 20 cm, there has been sea-level rise of up to twice that value in some places, but in others a drop of the same amount! Because of the melting of a large former ice cap over the Baltic area, the Earth’s viscous mantle is slowly deforming and as a result sea-level is decreasing in the North of the British Isles at the same time as it is rising on the south coast. Moreover, we have known since Darwin and understood since the plate tectonics revolution that atolls in the Pacific form over slowly subsiding volcanoes and will eventually drown (but at a slower ‘geological’ rate, due to thermal subsidence of the lithosphere on which they stand). In any case, the global average has no practical value in local or regional coastal management.

text: Sea-level change: Living with uncertainty Sea level change is a naturally occurring process. Since the last glacial maximum, some 18,000 years ago, de-glaciation has taken place and this natural global warming has led to sea-level rise of on average 120 m or so. At some times, pulses of melt water coming from large peri-glacial lakes led to rates of sea-level rise as high as 3 m per century. The rate slowed down some 7000 years ago and since then has been naturally fluctuating by only a few meters. The remaining global sea-level rise has been about 20 cm in the 20th century. Has this led to global disasters? The answer is no. If the projected rise over the 21st century is double what was seen in the 20th, is it likely that it will result in global disasters? Again, the answer is most likely no; human ingenuity, innovation and engineering, and the proper material and financial resources should solve local problems if and when they arrive, as they have in the 20th century (see the Dutch example). 
In this short and accessible monograph, Willem de Lange and Robert Carter describe and explain sea-level change, including the many remaining uncertainties in our full understanding of what exactly drives this change, and discuss the implications, mainly regarding coastal management. The monograph is intended for policy makers, but it should be informative for any educated reader. De Lange and Carter analyse the causes of sea-level change, and describe how it has been measured – with tide gauges over the past 100 to 150 years and from satellites over the past 30 years. Their key message is to recall that sea-level change is a local phenomenon, with high variability and multiple causes. In the 20th century, for a global average rise of 20 cm, there has been sea-level rise of up to twice that value in some places, but in others a drop of the same amount! Because of the melting of a large former ice cap over the Baltic area, the Earth’s viscous mantle is slowly deforming and as a result sea-level is decreasing in the North of the British Isles at the same time as it is rising on the south coast. Moreover, we have known since Darwin and understood since the plate tectonics revolution that atolls in the Pacific form over slowly subsiding volcanoes and will eventually drown (but at a slower ‘geological’ rate, due to thermal subsidence of the lithosphere on which they stand). In any case, the global average has no practical value in local or regional coastal management.

year: 2014-01-15

title: Indigenous knowledge, methodology and mayhem: What is the role of methodology in producing indigenous insights? A discussion from Mātauranga Māori

authors: Smith, Linda Tuhiwai

abstract: The emergence of an academic discourse called Indigenous knowledge internationally, and mātauranga Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand, presents some substantive challenges to concepts of knowing and being, of knowledge creation, knowledge work and the making of meaning. These challenges engage us across philosophical, disciplinary, institutional, inter-generational, territorial and community boundaries, presenting an opportunity to imagine this field anew, and the theories and methodologies that inform contemporary Māori or Indigenous Studies. This article raises some discussion about ‘research methodologies’ being used when discussing mātauranga Māori and Indigenous knowledge (hereafter referred to as IK mātauranga). Research methodologies are often associated with specific disciplines of knowledge and viewed as the primary if not singular way in which knowledge is generated. Arguably, IK mātauranga occupies a different knowledge space from traditional academic disciplines, including their transdisciplinary interstices. This article speaks to a gnawing sense that mayhem is at play, as the academic work around IK mātauranga begins to consolidate and become institutionalised away from its indigenous communities and contexts, where it began and where it still informs identities, ways of living and being.

text: Indigenous knowledge, methodology and mayhem: What is the role of methodology in producing indigenous insights? A discussion from Mātauranga Māori The emergence of an academic discourse called Indigenous knowledge internationally, and mātauranga Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand, presents some substantive challenges to concepts of knowing and being, of knowledge creation, knowledge work and the making of meaning. These challenges engage us across philosophical, disciplinary, institutional, inter-generational, territorial and community boundaries, presenting an opportunity to imagine this field anew, and the theories and methodologies that inform contemporary Māori or Indigenous Studies. This article raises some discussion about ‘research methodologies’ being used when discussing mātauranga Māori and Indigenous knowledge (hereafter referred to as IK mātauranga). Research methodologies are often associated with specific disciplines of knowledge and viewed as the primary if not singular way in which knowledge is generated. Arguably, IK mātauranga occupies a different knowledge space from traditional academic disciplines, including their transdisciplinary interstices. This article speaks to a gnawing sense that mayhem is at play, as the academic work around IK mātauranga begins to consolidate and become institutionalised away from its indigenous communities and contexts, where it began and where it still informs identities, ways of living and being.

year: 2016