Research About The Impact Of The Government Environmental Auditing On Environmental Performance

Environment is the foundation of human beings surviving, thriving and growing on earth. But in the process of development of human society, especially since the industrial revolution, the rapid economic development has been at the expense of the environment, and brought to mankind a painful lesson. Air pollution, water pollution, waste disposal problem, the problem of soil erosion and destruction of biodiversity, such environmental pollution and damage to human survival and development not only poses a serious threat but also led to public concern for environmental issues. With the deepening of the concept of sustainable development, public awareness of environmental protection has gradually increased.China has the largest population but relatively lack of resources. While with the high-speed economic development, the total amount of resources available to us is declining, but the amount of resource consumption is increasing. In order to control pollution and protect the environment, our country has invested a lot of environmental funds, in addition to the introduction of a large number of environmental laws and regulations. But whether the investment in environmental protection has been used in the proper way? Environmental protection laws and regulations, whether they have been complied with? These require audit agency to supervise.Environmental auditing is an effective means of environmental protection, and it is dominated by the government in our country at present. In order to strengthen the construction of ecological civilization, and implement the basic national policy of conserving resources and protecting the environment, we need to give full play to the function in protection and management of ecological environment of government environmental auditing. However, the Chinese government environmental auditing is still in the stage of exploration and development, and practice of government environmental auditing faces many challenges in the meantime.Development of government environmental auditing has showed a wide range of trend since National Audit Office of the People’s Republic of China was established in1983. National Audit Office of the PRC has successively exercised supervision through environmental auditing over the environmental protection funds and many other projects. Whether can we achieve the purpose of improving environmental management performance by government environmental auditing? This research will analyze the basic theory of government environmental auditing, and then will empirical test the relevant data of "Three Rivers&Three Lakes " Performance Auditing of Water Pollution Control to analyze the impact of the government environmental auditing on environmental performance improvement.This paper is divided into six chapters, each chapter follows:Chapter1ExordiumThis chapter includes three parts:background and significance, ideas and framework, methods of this research. Background describes the purpose of this paper, and significance describes the theoretical and practical significance of this research to government environmental auditing; ideas and framework show the representation of the logical thinking of this paper through text and graphic; methods of this research is described in the last part. Chapter2Research ReviewThis chapter reviews the relevant researches about government environmental auditing firstly because there are lacking of literatures about impact of the government environmental auditing on environmental performance improvement. The review summarizes the conclusions of the relevant researches about environmental auditing, government environmental auditing and government environmental performance auditing according to progressive relationship. And then the following part evaluates the contributions and deficiencies of the existing research results.Chapter3Theoretical AnalysisFirstly, this chapter defines the environment, environmental auditing, government environmental auditing, environmental performance and environmental performance improvement. Secondly, the following part analyzes the relevant theoretical basis of government environmental auditing, which includes the theory of public accountability, external economic, and sustainable development. Finally, the measurable standards of environmental performance improvement are explained.Chapter4Research DesignThis chapter introduces the background and the situation of "Three Rivers&Three Lakes " Performance Auditing of Water Pollution Control,and explains the reason of using "Three Rivers&Three Lakes" as the research subject at first. In the second place, this part proposes hypothesis about the impact of the government environmental auditing on environmental performance improvement. The environmental performance improvement can be divided into two levels, the legality of environmental management performance and the initiative of environmental management performance. At the end of this chapter, the variables and regression models are set, and the sample and data are explained in detail.Chapter5Empirical ResultsThis chapter conducts a multivariate regression analysis firstly, and the results indicate that environmental management performance has been improved significantly by government environmental auditing as time goes on. However, the improvement can not be explained the function of government environmental auditing by using time division entirely. In order to distinguish the effect of government environmental auditing, this paper uses the Difference-in-Difference model to compare the environmental management performance of the cities which have been supervised by government environmental auditing with the cities which haven’t. And the research hypothesis have been verified after the empirical test.Chapter6ConclusionsThis chapter presents the conclusions of this paper based on empirical results. The results show that the legality of environmental management performance improvement has a significant positive correlation with the government environmental auditing, while the initiative of environmental management performance improvement has not. Finally, this chapter puts forward policy suggestions based on the research conclusions, and ideas for further improvements of this paper as well.The main contribution of this paper are:(1)The research contents have a relatively perspectiveness. In the government environmental auditing research field in China, researchers rarely study from the perspective of the correlation between government environmental auditing and environmental performance improvement. In this research, environmental performance improvement has been divided into two levels, the legality of environmental management performance and the initiative of environmental management performance. The research gains some empirical evidence of "Three Rivers&Three Lakes " Performance Auditing of Water Pollution Control, which make the research contents are relatively prospective.(2) The research method has a relatively innovativeness. In order to distinguish the effect of government environmental auditing, the Difference-in-Difference model has been used to compare the environmental management performance of the cities which have been supervised by government environmental auditing with the cities which haven’t. This econometric model has rarely been used in government environmental auditing research field, which make the research method is relatively innovative.(3) The policy suggestions have a relatively practicality. The research gains some empirical evidence of "Three Rivers&Three Lakes " Performance Auditing of Water Pollution Control, and presents the conclusions according to the empirical results. Policy suggestions are put forward based on the conclusions, which make the policy suggestions are relatively practical.