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.

Narratives of grassroots innovations: a comparison of voluntary simplicity and the transition movement in Italy

Grassroots innovations (GI) are promising examples of deliberate transformation of socio-technical systems towards resilience and sustainability. However, evidence is needed on the factors that limit or enable their success. This paper set out to study how GI use narratives to empower innovation in the face of incumbent socio-technical regimes. Institutional documents were comparatively analyzed to assess how the narratives influence the structure, form of action and external interactions of two Italian grassroots networks, Bilanci di Giustizia and Transition Network Italy. The paper finds an internal consistency between narratives and strategies for each of the two networks. The paper also highlights core similarities, but also significant differences in the ethical basis of the two narratives, and in the organizations and strategies. Such differences determine different forms of innovation empowerment and expose the niche to different potentials to transform incumbent regimes, or to the risk of being co-opted by them.

Investigating preferences for dynamic electricity tariffs: the effect of environmental and system benefit disclosure

Dynamic electricity pricing can produce efficiency gains in the electricity sector and help achieve energy policy goals such as increasing electric system reliability and supporting renewable energy deployment. Retail electric companies can offer dynamic pricing to residential electricity customers via smart meter-enabled tariffs that proxy the cost to procure electricity on the wholesale market. Current investments in the smart metering necessary to implement dynamic tariffs show policy makers’ resolve for enabling responsive demand and realizing its benefits. However, despite these benefits and the potential bill savings these tariffs can offer, adoption among residential customers remains at low levels. Using a choice experiment approach, this paper seeks to determine whether disclosing the environmental and system benefits of dynamic tariffs to residential customers can increase adoption. Although sampling and design issues preclude wide generalization, we found that our environmentally conscious respondents reduced their required discount to switch to dynamic tariffs around 10% in response to higher awareness of environmental and system benefits. The perception that shifting usage is easy to do also had a significant impact, indicating the potential importance of enabling technology. Perhaps the targeted communication strategy employed by this study is one way to increase adoption and achieve policy goals.

A study of corporate social responsibility disclosure practices in Saudi Arabia

This paper analyses changes in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting practices among Saudi listed companies in the past three years. Using content analysis methodology of annual reports, a sample of 174 annual reports representing 58 Saudi listed companies from different sectors were analysed to investigate the extent of the level of CSR disclosure in the years 2010 to 2012. Our paper focuses on trends of CSR information in the four categories: Environment; Employee; Community and Customer. In developing countries, the CSR disclosure studies are limited and in the case of Saudi Arabia. Overall a significant increase in CSR reporting was observed over that period despite the fact that private-sector companies are still in the early stages of awareness as far as integrating CSR activities into their corporate policies and strategies is concerned.

Voluntary export restraints between Britain and Japan: the case of the UK car market (1971–2002)

The rise in international markets of new, productive Japanese car manufacturers provoked intense world competition, which created serious doubts about the economic sustainability of an industry mostly dominated until the 1970s by European and North-American multinational companies. Ultimately, this crisis provoked a deep transformation of the industry, with consequences that had a permanent impact on European companies in the sector. American and later European manufacturers were successful in lobbying governments to provide protection. Using a rich source of data from the UK, I show that the ‘new trade policy’, voluntary export restraint (VER), placed on Japanese exports of new cars from 1977 to December 1999, was binding. This case study illustrates the strategies used by Japanese manufacturers to gain access to the European market through the UK market via strategic alliances and later through transplant production, against which continental European nation states were unable to fully insulate themselves. It is also shown that the policy had a profound effect on the nature of Japanese products, as Japanese firms responded to the quantity restraints by radically altering the product characteristics of their automobiles and shifting towards larger autos and new goods, to maximise their profits subject to the binding constraint.

Strategic trade policy, competition, and welfare: the case of voluntary export restraints between Britain and Japan (1971–2002)

I evaluate the voluntary export restraint placed on Japanese automobile exports from 1977 to 1999 by the UK. I show that the policy failed to assist the British domestic car industry. Instead, UK-based US multi-nationals and Japanese manufacturers were the primary beneficiaries, at a substantial cost to UK consumers. Whilst there are a number of caveats, the policy was on balance damaging to the UK economy in welfare terms.

Does stakeholder pressure influence corporate GHG emissions reporting? Empirical evidence from Europe

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to seek to shed light on the practice of incomplete corporate disclosure of quantitative Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and investigates whether external stakeholder pressure influences the existence, and separately, the completeness of voluntary GHG emissions disclosures by 431 European companies. Design/methodology/approach – A classification of reporting completeness is developed with respect to the scope, type and reporting boundary of GHG emissions based on the guidelines of the GHG Protocol, Global Reporting Initiative and the Carbon Disclosure Project. Logistic regression analysis is applied to examine whether proxies for exposure to climate change concerns from different stakeholder groups influence the existence and/or completeness of quantitative GHG emissions disclosure. Findings – From 2005 to 2009, on average only 15 percent of companies that disclose GHG emissions report them in a manner that the authors consider complete. Results of regression analyses suggest that external stakeholder pressure is a determinant of the existence but not the completeness of emissions disclosure. Findings are consistent with stakeholder theory arguments that companies respond to external stakeholder pressure to report GHG emissions, but also with legitimacy theory claims that firms can use carbon disclosure, in this case the incomplete reporting of emissions, as a symbolic act to address legitimacy exposures. Practical implications – Bringing corporate GHG emissions disclosure in line with recommended guidelines will require either more direct stakeholder pressure or, perhaps, a mandated disclosure regime. In the meantime, users of the data will need to carefully consider the relevance of the reported data and develop the necessary competencies to detect and control for its incompleteness. A more troubling concern is that stakeholders may instead grow to accept less than complete disclosure. Originality/value – The paper represents the first large-scale empirical study into the completeness of companies’ disclosure of quantitative GHG emissions and is the first to analyze these disclosures in the context of stakeholder pressure and its relation to legitimation.

Voluntary action and causality in temporal binding

Previous studies have documented temporal attraction in perceived times of actions and their effects. While some authors argue that voluntary action is a necessary condition for this phenomenon, others claim that the causal relationship between action and effect is the crucial ingredient. In the present study, we investigate voluntary action and causality as the necessary and sufficient conditions for temporal binding. We used a variation of the launching effect proposed by Michotte, in which participants controlled the launch stimulus in some blocks. Volunteers reported causality ratings and estimated the interval between the two events. Our results show dissociations between causality ratings and temporal estimation. While causality ratings are not affected by voluntary action, temporal bindings were only found in the presence of both voluntary action and high causality. Our results indicate that voluntary action and causality are both necessary for the emergence of temporal binding.

Effects of voluntary running on spatial memory and mature brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression in mice hippocampus after status epilepticus

Voluntary physical activity improves memory and learning ability in rodents, whereas status epilepticus has been associated with memory impairment. Physical activity and seizures have been associated with enhanced hippocampal expression of BDNF, indicating that this protein may have a dual role in epilepsy. The influence of voluntary physical activity on memory and BDNF expression has been poorly studied in experimental models of epilepsy. In this paper, we have investigated the effect of voluntary physical activity on memory and BDNF expression in mice with pilocarpine-incluced epilepsy. Male Swiss mice were assigned to four experimental groups: pilocarpine sedentary (PS), pilocarpine runners (PRs), saline sedentary (SS) and saline runners (SRs). Two days after pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus, the affected mice (PR) and their running controls (SR) were housed with access to a running wheel for 28 days. After that, the spatial memory and the expression of the precursor and mature forms of hippocampal BDNF were assessed. PR mice performed better than PS mice in the water maze test. In addition, PR mice had a higher amount of mature BDNF (14 kDa) relative to the total BDNF (14 kDa + 28 kDa + 32 kDa forms) content when compared with PS mice. These results show that voluntary physical activity improved the spatial memory and increased the hippocampal content of mature BDNF of mice with pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Informal sanctions and conditional cooperation: : A natural experiment on voluntary contributions to a public good.

In a natural experiment, this paper studies the impact of an informal sanctioning mechanism on individuals’ voluntary contribution to a public good. Cross-country skiers’ actual cash contributions in two ski resorts, one with and one without an informal sanctioning system, are used. I find the contributing share to be higher in the informal sanctioning system (79 percent) than in the non-sanctioning system (36 percent). Previous studies in one-shot public good situations have found an increasing conditional contribution (CC) function, i.e. the relationship between expected average contributions of other group members and the individual’s own contribution. In contrast, the present results suggest that the CC-function in the non-sanctioning system is non-increasing at high perceived levels of others’ contribution. This relationship deserves further testing in lab.

Mechanism of Muscle Vibrations During Stimulated and Voluntary Isometric Contractions of Mammalian Skeletal Muscle

When a muscle contracts it produces vibrations. The origin of these vibrations is not known in detail. The purpose of this study was to determine the mechanism associated with muscle vibrations. Mechanisms which have been proposed in the literature were described as theories (cross-bridge cycling, vibrating string and unfused motor unit theories). Specific predictions were derived from each theory, and tested in three conceptually different studies. In the first study, the influence of recruitment strategies of motor units (MUs) on the vibromyographic (VMG) signal was studied in the in-situ cat soleus using electrical stimulation of the soleus nerve. VMG signals increased with increasing recruitment and decreased with increasing firing rates of MUs. Similar results were obtained for the human rectus femoris (RF) muscle using percutaneous electrical stimulation of the femoral nerve. The influence of MU activation on muscle vibrations was studied in RF by analyzing VMG signals at different percentages (0-100%) of the maximal voluntary contraction (MVC). In our second study, we tested the effects of changing the material properties of the in-situ cat soleus (through muscle length changes) on the VMG signal. The magnitude of the VMG signal was higher for intermediate muscle lengths compared to the longest and the shortest muscle lengths. The decreased magnitude of the VMG signal at the longest and at the shortest muscle lengths was associated with increased passive stiffness and with decreased force transients during unfused contractions, respectively. In the third study, the effect of fatigue on muscle vibrations was studied in human RF and vastus lateralis (VL) musc1es during isometric voluntary contractions at a leveI of 70% MVC. A decrease in the VMG signal magnitude was observed in RF (presumably due to derecruitment of MUs) and an increase in VL (probably related to the enhancement of physiological tremor, which may have occurred predorninantly in a mediolateral direction) with fatigue. The unfused MU theory, which is based on the idea that force transients produced by MUs during unfused tetanic contraction is the mechanism for muscle vibrations, was supported by the results obtained in the above three studies.

Disclosure da utilização de derivativos por companhias abertas não-financeiras brasileiras

A pesquisa avaliou o grau de disclosure da utilização de derivativos, por companhias abertas não-financeiras brasileiras. Dez "dimensões" dessa utilização foram analisadas, à luz principalmente do que dispõe a regulamentação americana sobre a matéria. Os resultados mostram que, em comparação com o que esta exige, o grau de disclosure da utilização de derivativos pelas empresas brasileiras deixa muito a desejar; nesse mister, as empresas com participação de capital estrangeiro não apresentam práticas de disclosure superiores às empresas simplesmente domésticas.

Responsabilidade socioambiental: a divulgação de relatórios na América Latina

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar comparativamente as informações socioambientais divulgadas pelas companhias latino-americanas nos seus relatórios. Foi efetuada uma análise de conteúdo das informações socioambientais divulgadas por uma amostra de 226 organizações, no período de 2004 a 2009, segregadas por país, empresa, setor e ano. Foram utilizadas as diretrizes voluntárias da Global Reporting Initiative como escopo para analisar o conteúdo dos relatórios anuais, relatórios de sustentabilidade e Formulários 20F, disponibilizados pelas organizações, nos seus websites ou nas bolsas de valores em que negociam suas ações. A maioria das companhias de capital aberto na região não disponibiliza informações socioambientais nos seus relatórios anuais ou em relatórios específicos sobre o tema. No âmbito das multinacionais que operam na América Latina e que foram selecionadas para este estudo, percebeu-se maior concentração dessas na Argentina, Chile e Peru e foram as companhias que mais divulgaram informações socioambientais nos relatórios analisados nesses países. Entre os países latino-americanos, verificou-se que o nível de aderência às diretrizes voluntárias de divulgação de informações socioambientais é baixo, mas as companhias estabelecidas no Brasil são as que têm maior e melhor nível de aderência a tais diretrizes. O referencial teórico indicou as várias influências históricas que contribuíram para esse resultado, como a organização e adesão do setor empresarial à questão socioambiental, além do apoio de ONGs que se especializaram em difundir o tema. O Instituto Ethos de Empresas e Responsabilidade Social, além de outras entidades, como IBASE e GIFE, exerceram e exercem importante papel na difusão e profissionalização das ações socioambientais das companhias brasileiras. Nos demais países, o assunto ainda é incipiente, apesar de haver várias instituições locais voltadas para a participação empresarial na elaboração e divulgação de relatórios voltados para o tema, o assunto começou a ser amplamente divulgado há poucos anos. As companhias que compuseram a amostra deste trabalho estão entre as de maior porte dos seus respectivos países. No caso do Brasil e do México, a indústria local tem sua maneira própria de elaborar ações socioambientais, bem como, divulgá-las em relatórios específicos. Quanto à evolução e forma de divulgação de informações socioambientais, tem-se o relatório anual como o principal canal utilizado pelas companhias para destacar tais informações, seguido do relatório de sustentabilidade, divulgado como parte do relatório anual, ou como uma publicação específica.

Test score disclosure and school performance

In this paper we test whether the disclosure of test scores has direct impacts on student performance, school composition and school inputs. We take advantage of the discontinuity on the disclosure rules of The National Secondary Education Examination (ENEM) run in Brazil by the Ministry of Education: In 2006 it was established that the 2005 mean score results would be disclosed for schools with ten or more students who took the exam in the previous year. We use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the e ects of test disclosure. Our results indicate that private schools that had their average scores released in 2005 outperformed those that did not by 0.2-0.6 in 2007. We did not nd same results for public schools. Moreover, we did not nd evidence that treated schools adjusted their inputs or that there was major changes in the students composition of treated schools. These ndings allow us to interpret that the main mechanism driving the di erences in performance was the increased levels of students', teachers' and principals' e ort exerted by those in schools that had scores publicized.