Current Status Quo Of Environmental Information Disclosure Of Coal Industry Listing Corporations In China

With the continuous advancement and the rapid development of society, especially since the global economy entered the era of the fast development after the industrial revolution, the environmental problem has become more and more prominent. Thus, many countries and districts are paying more and more attention to the problem of corporate environmental information disclosure and environmental accounting. Enterprises are the main body of social production, while also the main consumers of the natural resources and the most important damagers of the environment. Enterprises play a very important role in the modern society. While they supply the social with products and service, they also consume a society of material resources and social human capital. Enterprises have a pivotal role during the process of revolution, and environmental pollution and resource depletion is inextricably linked with enterprise’s production and operating activities. So the production and operating activities of the enterprises are considered to be the main source of damage to the environment. How to find a balance point between the economy development and the sustainable development of and society is an important task of all mankind that has been paid close attention to. With the concern of the environmental problem of the enterprise environmental information disclosure by the whole international community, environmental accounting and the enterprise environmental information disclosure was born. The stakeholders of enterprises can understand the intrinsic value and risk factors of the enterprise concerning the environment through the environmental information disclosure better by reading the environmental information.Since the seventies of the twentieth century, environmental issues are raising increasing attention of countries all over the world. Many countries are beginning to set environmental protection campaigns and make laws concerning the environmental protection to take the initiative to raise people’s awareness of environmental protection and reduce the destruction to the environment of human’s production and living. Many international organizations also began to issue appeals and reports concerning to the sustainable development. China started the research and practice of the environmental information disclosure a little lately. However, with more and more environmental destruction events happening in recent years, the whole social pay more and more to the problem of the environment damage and waste disposal, the corporate environmental information disclosure gradually is going on the right and systematic track. In recent years, especially after the eighteenth National Congress, Chinese lay the increasing emphasis on the construction of ecological civilization, but also require enterprises more and better environmental information disclosure. The environmental behavior and environmental information disclosure of the coal industry, one of the heavy pollution industry in China, is highly concerned. So this paper has a very great practical and theoretical significance.Firstly, based on present situation of the ecological civilization construction and the grim task of environmental protection which our country is facing, the necessity of environmental information disclosure for enterprises and the meaning and purpose of the study is suggested. According to the current status of the China’s heavy pollution of the coal industry, representativeness of the study is present. Subsequently, the literature of the disclosure of environmental information and environmental accounting were reviewed, focusing on the review of environmental information disclosure, disclosure form, disclosure research status and influence factors of the disclosure by Chinese scholars. Then after using the study method and experience of the pioneers and focusing on the problems in reality, the ideas and research methods of this paper are put forward. In order to provide a theoretical basis for the study of the status of the coal industry’s environmental disclosure, this paper analyzes the relevant theories and typical cases of environmental information disclosure. The theoretical research is from two points of view, one the environmental accounting and the other the environmental information disclosure. The definition of environmental accounting, the development of the theory, the development of the environmental information disclosure is reviewed and summarized. Peabody CO, the largest coal company in USA is chosen as the typical case. Based on the index system of G4, a detailed analysis of the indicators of the environmental information in Peabody’s social responsibility report is present which has a great referential significance for the disclosure of Listed Companies in China’s coal industry. Then, the environmental information disclosure systems of different countries are introduced in this paper. The United States, a few developed countries in Europe and Japan is selected to be compared to China’s environmental information disclosure system. The development process of laws and regulations system related to environmental information disclosure is introduced. Based on the comparison, the gap of environmental information disclosure between China and the developed countries is summarized.On the basis of theoretical analysis and international comparison, this paper carried out in-depth and detailed analysis of present situation of environmental information disclosure of coal industry listing Corporation in China. In this study, we mainly focus on two aspects. One is the quantity of the environmental information disclosure while the other is the quality. The study of quantity concludes the disclosure form and completeness of the information. The study of quality is mainly based on the five requirements of quality in G4. Finally, the existing problems in environmental information disclosure of the coal industry listed companies and the suggestions on feasible measures are put forward, concluding four aspects. The suggestions conclude three aspects. The first is how to improve consciousness and ability of corporate environmental information disclosure. The second one is how to improve the environmental information disclosure system in China by constructing the environmental law system and the calculation system of environmental accounting. And the last one is how to construct a framework for the environmental information disclosure. However, the success of environmental information disclosure cannot be achieved overnight, because the institutional environment of our country, the public awareness of environmental protection and the environment awareness of corporate all need to be improved gradually. Therefore, joint efforts of government, enterprises and the whole society are necessary in order to truly realize the continuous improvement of the system and the practice, and to build ecological civilization and harmonious society in China.