Progress report on longitudinal and cross-sectional study of carbon disclosure strategies: evidence from UK listed companies

Global warming has attracted attention from all over the world and led to the concern about carbon emission. Kyoto Protocol, as the first major international regulatory emission trading scheme, was introduced in 1997 and outlined the strategies for reducing carbon emission (Ratnatunga et al., 2011). As the increased interest in carbon reduction the Protocol came into force in 2005, currently there are already 191 nations ratifying the Protocol(UNFCCC, 2012). Under the cap-and-trade schemes, each company has its carbon emission target. When company’s carbon emission exceeds the target the company will either face fines or buy emission allowance from other companies. Thus unlike most of the other social and environmental issues carbon emission could trigger cost for companies in introducing low-emission equipment and systems and also emission allowance cost when they emit more than their targets. Despite the importance of carbon emission to companies, carbon emission reporting is still operating under unregulated environment and companies are only required to disclose when it is material either in value or in substances (Miller, 2005, Deegan and Rankin, 1997). Even though there is still an increase in the volume of carbon emission disclosures in company’s financial reports and stand-alone social and environmental reports to show their concern of the environment and also their social responsibility (Peters and Romi, 2009), the motivations behind corporate carbon emission disclosures and whether carbon disclosures have impact on corporate environmental reputation and financial performance have not yet to explore. The problems with carbon emission lie on both the financial side and non-financial side of corporate governance. On one hand corporate needs to spend money in reducing carbon emission or paying penalties when they emit more than allowed. On the other hand as the public are more interested in environmental issues than before carbon emission could also impact on the image of corporate regarding to its environmental performance. The importance of carbon emission issue are beginning to be recognized by companies from different industries as one of the critical issues in supply chain management (Lee, 2011) and 80% of companies analysed are facing carbon risks resulting from emissions in the companies’ supply chain as shown in a study conducted by the Investor Responsibility Research Centre Institute for Corporate Responsibility (IRRCI) and over 80% of the companies analysed found that the majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission are from electricity and other direct suppliers (Trucost, 2009). The review of extant literature shows the increased importance of carbon emission issues and the gap in the study of carbon reporting and disclosures and also the study which links corporate environmental reputation and corporate financial performance with carbon reporting (Lohmann, 2009a, Ratnatunga and Balachandran, 2009, Bebbington and Larrinaga-Gonzalez, 2008). This study would focus on investigating the current status of UK carbon emission disclosures, the determinant factors of corporate carbon disclosure, and the relationship between carbon emission disclosures and corporate environmental reputation and financial performance of UK listed companies from 2004-2012 and explore the explanatory power of classical disclosure theories.