Research On Quality Evaluation And Influencing Factors Of Carbon Information Disclosure In Water Industry

With the introduction of the dual-carbon target,the country has been optimizing the policy system,industrial structure and supporting system in combination with its national conditions and urban characteristics,and on this basis,promoting low-carbon development in accordance with local conditions.However,in this process,there are still many challenges.For example,the mandatory disclosure of carbon emission information,carbon emission accounting certification and other systems are not sound enough,and the support of a stable,long-term and systematic nationwide policies and laws and regulations is lacking.In the process of actively promoting our national economic and social transformation to green and low-carbon,enterprises,as the main source of greenhouse gas emissions,are the main body taking actions to control greenhouse gas emissions.To promote the low-carbon transformation of enterprises,it requires self-discipline of enterprises and supervision of the government and society.In order to achieve this,timely,accurate and comprehensive carbon information disclosure of enterprises is crucial.This paper takes stakeholder theory,corporate social responsibility theory,information asymmetry theory and principal-agent theory as the theoretical basis of the research,combined with the use of analytic hierarchy process,index method,panel data regression analysis and other empirical research methods.Firstly,based on the content of carbon information disclosure,measurement of carbon information disclosure quality and related research results of influencing factors,review and summary,clear connotation and measurement methods of carbon information disclosure quality,and analyze and summarize the status quo of carbon information disclosure in Chinese water industry.By referring to the international carbon information disclosure standards and the quality characteristics of Chinese disclosure,the paper selects emission reduction strategy and management,emission reduction education and measures,external incentives,audit authentication,carbon information accounting and carbon information disclosure time as the first-level indicators from the four aspects of integrity,reliability,comparability and timeliness,and constructs the carbon information disclosure quality evaluation system in the water industry.The index method was used to objectively calculate the quality index of carbon information disclosure.It is found that the carbon information disclosure quality of enterprises in the water industry has problems such as low content integrity,weak information reliability and poor information comparability,and the quality of carbon information disclosure of enterprises in the water industry needs to be improved.The study further explore the factors affecting the quality of carbon information disclosure in Chinese water industry from the aspects of internal structure factors and external institutional environmental factors.The research shows that the internal factors of enterprises:(1)The higher the proportion of independent directors,the stronger the positive effect on the quality of carbon information disclosure;(2)Compared with state-owned enterprises or non-state-owned enterprises,water enterprises with higher proportion of state-owned shares have higher quality of carbon information disclosure;(3)There is a significant positive promoting effect between equity balance degree and carbon information disclosure quality;External institutional environmental factors:(1)The stronger the urban supervision,the higher the carbon information transparency,the higher the carbon information disclosure quality of local water enterprises;(2)Water utilities located in carbon emission trading locations have higher carbon information disclosure quality than water utilities located in other locations.According to theoretical analysis and empirical research,this paper puts forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions from the perspective of enterprises,the public and the government:(1)improve the awareness of carbon information disclosure of enterprises in the water industry,and build carbon management system;(2)Improve the management structure of enterprises and enhance the scientific nature of carbon disclosure decisions;(3)Encourage and guide non-state-owned enterprises to improve their participation in carbon information disclosure;(4)Change business philosophy and increase investment in green innovation;(5)Improve policy standards and strengthen government supervision;(6)To publicize the concept of low carbon and play the role of social supervision.