The Impact Of Carbon Information Disclosure On Financial Performance Of Listed Companies

With the global climate change,environmental issues have become important hot issues of concern to countries and enterprises around the world,among which the most prominent issue is the global warming and ecosystem destruction caused by carbon dioxide emissions,and countries around the world have to control carbon emissions.The "30-60 target" proposed by President Xi Jinping shows China’s vision of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality,and the carbon information disclosure mechanism,which is the carrier of carbon emission information,has not yet formed clear and unified disclosure standards and guidelines at home and abroad,which requires further strengthening the research of carbon information disclosure and other aspects,and establishing a carbon information disclosure system applicable to China.This requires further strengthening research on several aspects of carbon information disclosure and establishing a carbon information disclosure system applicable to China.In addition,with the continuous promotion of China’s high-quality economic development,the carbon trading system and the carbon emission trading market are improving and maturing,and the disclosure of carbon information by enterprises already affects the financial performance of enterprises to a certain extent,especially for enterprises with high carbon emissions.Based on this,this paper adopts a case study approach,combining literature research method and content analysis method,and selects a representative petrochemical industry as the entry point,taking China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation as the case study object.Firstly,this paper constructs a more comprehensive carbon information disclosure quality evaluation system based on the relevant index selection principles,drawing on existing research results and combining with the content framework of carbon information disclosure project;secondly,based on the established evaluation system,the content analysis method is used to analyze Sinopec’s carbon information disclosure status and it’s disclosure quality from 2016 to 2021 in detail;thirdly,the financial performance of the case company was analyzed using the accounting indicator method,and the path of the role of carbon disclosure quality on financial performance was explored based on reputation theory,signaling theory,stakeholder theory,and organizational legitimacy theory;then,it is concluded that: listed companies can improve their reputation,increase product sales,and absorb capital investment by improving the quality of carbon information disclosure,thus promoting the company’s profitability,operating capacity;and in terms of solvency,this paper finds that the improvement of carbon information disclosure quality will increase the capital expenditure of enterprises and raise the debt level of companies,thus reducing the solvency.Finally,this paper gives relevant suggestions for the information disclosure problems appeared in the case companies.It is expected that the research of this paper can provide empirical evidence to promote listed companies to actively disclose carbon information,and provide some reference for the national improvement of carbon information disclosure system and law.