Voluntary Disclosure of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Contrasting the Carbon Disclosure Project and Corporate Reports

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• 作者：Florence Depoers ; Thomas Jeanjean ; Tiphaine Jérôme
• 关键词：Communication channels ; GHG emissions ; Stakeholder theory ; Traceability ; Voluntary disclosure
• 刊名：Journal of Business Ethics
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：March 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：134
• 期：3
• 页码：445-461
• 全文大小：537 KB
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• 作者单位：Florence Depoers (1)
  Thomas Jeanjean (2)
  Tiphaine Jérôme (3)
  
  1. Université Paris Sud, RITM, 54 Boulevard Desgranges, 92331, Sceaux Cedex, France
  2. ESSEC Business School, Avenue Bernard Hirsch, BP 50105, 95021, Cergy Pontoise Cedex, France
  3. HEC Paris, 1 Rue de la Libération, 78350, Jouy-en-Josas, France
  
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Philosophy
  Ethics
  Economic Growth
  Management
  Quality of Life Research
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-0697

文摘

As global warming continues to attract growing levels of attention, various stakeholders (states, general public, investors, and lobbyists) have put climate change on corporate agendas and expect firms to disclose relevant greenhouse gas (GHG) information. In this paper, we investigate the consistency of the GHG information voluntarily disclosed by French listed firms through two different communication channels: corporate reports (CR) and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). More precisely, we contrast the amounts of GHG emissions reported and the methodological explanations provided (named ‘traceability’) in each channel. Consistent with a stakeholder theory perspective, we find that GHG amounts are significantly lower in the CR than in the CDP. We also find that firms increase the CR figures’ traceability when there is a discrepancy between disclosures in the two channels. We suggest that the aim of this greater traceability is to enhance information credibility across the different channels used.