The Impact Of Environmental Information Disclosure Quality On The Performance Of Listed Industrial Firms

With the rapid development of the global economy,the ensuing environmental problems have reached a record high.As the basic driver of economic growth and the ultimate user of environmental resources,enterprises should take the initiative to assume environmental responsibility and implement their environmental obligations.With the growing importance of corporate environmental governance,stakeholders are also using ecological information as an important way to understand the fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibility.Corporate environmental information disclosure is crucial to the development of industry and environmental regulation,and also affects the stability of the capital market.Active disclosure of environmental information can send positive signals to the capital market,narrow the gap between enterprises and stakeholders,help build a good reputation,establish a positive image,promote the sustainable development of enterprises,and to some extent,reduce debt financing costs and enhance corporate value.Therefore,it is meaningful to include the cost of debt financing in the study of the relationship between the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure and corporate performance.This paper investigates the role mechanism of industrial enterprises to improve the quality of their own environmental information disclosure by taking the cost of debt financing as a research perspective.(1)The current research on environmental information disclosure,cost of debt financing and corporate performance is reviewed and the hypothesis of this paper is proposed on this basis.(2)This paper selects industrial enterprises listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2012 to 2021 and constructs a mediating effect model to study the effect of environmental information disclosure quality on corporate performance,and also investigates the mediating effect of corporate debt financing cost in this study.The results show that active environmental information disclosure can help improve corporate performance and that high-quality environmental information disclosure can improve corporate performance by reducing corporate debt financing costs.Further study finds that there is significant heterogeneity in the effect of environmental information disclosure quality on firm performance.Specifically,high quality environmental information disclosure has a more pronounced effect on the performance of non-state enterprises than state-owned enterprises,and the quality of environmental information disclosure of high-growth enterprises improves the performance of enterprises more significantly than that of low-growth enterprises,which care more about economic effects.In response to the above findings,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations from three perspectives:(1)At the government level,the government should improve existing policy regulations,develop uniform disclosure standards,and enhance public awareness of environmental protection.At the same time,it should open communication channels between relevant departments,industry self-regulatory bodies,and non-governmental environmental organizations,build a multi-level cooperative regulatory system,and strengthen environmental protection requirements for state-owned enterprises in terms of environmental policies.(2)At the enterprise level,enterprises should pay attention to the improvement of environmental information disclosure quality and improve their own environmental management system;they should change their development concept,actively assume social responsibility and improve their willingness to disclose environmental information;low-growth enterprises should overcome their disadvantages and focus on long-term development.(3)From the creditor level,creditors should establish the concept of "green investment",pay more attention to the environmental awareness and environmental information disclosure quality of invested enterprises,and force enterprises to make higher quality environmental information disclosure.