Research On ESG Information Disclosure Of Listed Companies In Pharmaceutical Industry

ESG is an emerging non-financial information disclosure mode in recent years.ESG contains non-financial information from three aspects of environment,society and corporate governance,and can reflect the comprehensive performance of enterprises in the market.With the proposal of the dual-carbon target,regulators,investors and enterprises pay more attention to ESG.Investors gradually take ESG information of enterprises as an important reference factor for decision-making.This also means that in the current environment,only the disclosure of financial reports by listed companies can no longer meet the needs of report users.ESG information disclosure is an important channel for stakeholders to obtain non-financial information of enterprises.It can help stakeholders judge the sustainable development ability of enterprises,and it can help enterprises with better ESG performance gain more stakeholders’ favor.The high-quality development and sustainable development of pharmaceutical enterprises are important for national development.However,the current act of Chinese pharmaceutical listed enterprises’ environmental responsibility and social responsibility are not satisfactory.And the act of corporate governance needs to be improved urgently,too.In order to promote the high-quality development of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises,the pharmaceutical listed enterprises should strengthen the awareness of ESG information disclosure.Also,these listed enterprises should strive to improve the content and quality of ESG information disclosure.Livzon Group is a representative pharmaceutical enterprise in China,it has released ESG reports for six consecutive years.The analysis of its ESG information disclosure can provide a reference for the ESG information disclosure of listed pharmaceutical enterprises in China.Based on the background above,this thesis carried out research on the ESG information disclosure of Chinese pharmaceutical listed enterprises through literature research method and case analysis method.This thesis briefly introduces the concept of ESG and ESG information disclosure,summarizes the relevant literature of ESG information disclosure and the relevant guidelines and policies of ESG information disclosure at home and abroad.Also,this thesis summarizes the theoretical research of ESG information disclosure by combining the theory of sustainable development,external economic theory,stakeholder theory and signal transmission theory.After sorting out the relevant theories of ESG information disclosure,this thesis explores the current situation of Chinese pharmaceutical listed enterprises’ ESG information disclosure from four aspects: disclosure form,disclosure quantity,disclosure standard and disclosure length.Based on the established ESG information disclosure quality evaluation system,the thesis scored the quality of Chinese pharmaceutical listed enterprises’ ESG information disclosure.It found that listed pharmaceutical companies acted better in the environmental dimension,and H-share listed companies had higher scoring rates than A-share listed companies.In addition,both A-share and H-share companies have low scoring rates for negative information disclosure.In order to carry out further research,this thesis selects Livzon Group as the case company.Through the introduction and analysis of Livzon Group’s ESG information disclosure,this thesis explores the existing problems of Livzon Group’s ESG information disclosure,and puts forward specific suggestions.As a representative listed pharmaceutical enterprise,Livzon Group has independently published ESG reports for six consecutive years.During these years,Livzon Group continuously enriched the content of ESG reports,and the company’s ESG rating has been steadily improved.As the scores of ESG information disclosure in the past six years shown,Livzon Group’s scores in all the three dimensions show an increasing trend.And the increase trend of environmental dimension is the most obvious,while the overall score rate of social dimension is highest.In addition,although the indexes disclosed by Livzon Group is increasing and the content of ESG report is enriching,there are still some problems exist,such as lack of balance,lack of comparability and lack of reliability.The analysis found that Livzon Group prefers to disclose favorable information when compiling ESG reports,and employees’ awareness of ESG disclosure needs to be improved.In addition,Livzon Group disclosed fewer quantitative indexes,and the disclosure caliber has not been unified.Besides,the HKEx has not required companies to conduct external verification of ESG reports,and external supervision should be more intensive.In order to optimize the quality of ESG information disclosure,Livzon Group should enhance the awareness of ESG information disclosure,promote the integration of ESG concept and corporate governance.Government agencies should strengthen the supervision of ESG information disclosure in the pharmaceutical industry,promoting the standardization and internationalization of ESG information disclosure.At the same time,third-party institutions should improve the ESG evaluation system and the authentication system to promote the sound development of ESG information disclosure.