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Recent research has drawn attention to the tension between the Central and local governments in China regarding their roles in environmental protection. This paper aims to explore this tension and examine the extent to which local/provincial government’s environmental oversight has influenced the quality of corporate environmental disclosure in China.

A sample of 198 listed companies in heavily polluting industries were selected to examine the relationship between their environmental disclosure quality and the respective local government’s environmental oversight level.

The results provide evidence that local/provincial government’s environmental oversight significantly influences environmental disclosure in China. Despite the coercive pressure from the powerful Central government on corporate environmental disclosure, local/provincial governments are able to buffer the pressure and adjust the intensity of their environmental oversight on companies during the implementation of central policies to retain local economic and political interests. This may partially explain the persistent issue of low environmental disclosure quality in China.

This study enriches our understanding of the significant role of local governments in China in enhancing or sometimes discounting the regulatory enforcement of the Central government on corporate environmental disclosure, pointing to the need for concerted efforts by both local and Central governments to advance environmental disclosure development.

Research on environmental disclosure in developed countries has been well established in the literature. However, such research in developing nations is still limited, especially in China, the world largest developing country. The existing literature on environmental disclosure in China links it with either market demands, or regulatory enforcement from the Central government. The importance of local/provincial governments and their environmental oversight has long been ignored, which motivates this research.

This paper aims to investigate the greenhouse gas (GHG)-related disclosure trends, content and strategies of the eight most high GHG-emitting Chinese power companies, over a period when government pressure to manage GHG emissions increased.

Data were collected from the 2000-2009 annual reports, corporate social and environmental responsibility reports and websites of eight Chinese power companies. Content analysis results were supplemented with excerpts from documents written in English or Chinese. Legitimacy theory informed the interpretation of the findings.

GHG-related disclosures increased from 2002 when the Chinese Government ratified the Kyoto Protocol and promulgated stringent environmental regulations. However, some expected types of GHG-related disclosure were absent or rare. Disclosure practices were found to be underpinned by reputation management objectives and reflected a symbolic rather than substantive legitimation strategy.

This study extends the literature on GHG-related disclosures by carbon-intensive firms and points to the need for future research to examine such disclosures in different countries to appreciate the variety in practice.

While the Chinese Government appears to have driven the emergence of GHG-related disclosure practices, companies can effect improvement by expanding the scope and content of what they disclose. Also, the growing emphasis on website disclosures may present challenges in ensuring the reliability and assurance of GHG disclosures.

This is the first study to examine GHG-related disclosure practices by Chinese power-generating companies, a sector crucial to managing the GHG effects of China’s significant economic growth.

The purpose of the study is to investigate strategies for enhancing pollution oversight by local governments while reducing government-enterprise collusion (GEC) levels. Additionally, the factors influencing pollution control efforts at incineration plants are explored. Potential approaches to improving them and for effectively reducing waste incineration pollution are suggested.

The authors examined the most effective methods for mitigating incineration-related pollution and preventing collusion and developed a differential game model involving interactions between local governments and incineration plants. The findings of this work have significant policy implications for central governments worldwide seeking to regulate waste incineration practices.

The results indicate that, first, elevating environmental assessment standards can incentivize local governments to improve their oversight efforts. Second, collusion between incineration plants and local governments can be deterred by transferring benefits from the plants to the local government, while increased supervision by the central government and the enforcement of penalties for collusion can also mitigate collusion. Third, both central and local governments can bolster their supervisory and penalty mechanisms for instances of excessive pollution, encouraging incineration plants to invest more in pollution control. Finally, when the central government finds it challenging to detect excessive incineration-related pollution, enhancing rewards and penalties at the local government level can be a viable alternative.

This study stands out by considering the dynamic nature of pollutants. A differential game model is constructed which captures the evolving dynamics between local governments and incineration plants, offering insights regarding the prevention of collusion from a dynamic perspective. The findings may provide a valuable reference for governments as they develop and enforce regulations while motivating incineration plants to actively engage in reducing waste-incineration pollution.

Using the case of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, I argue that the catastrophe was less an example of a low probability-high catastrophe event than an instance of socially produced risks and insecurities associated with deepwater oil and gas production during the neoliberal period after 1980. The disaster exposes the deadly intersection of the aggressive enclosure of a new technologically risky resource frontier (the deepwater continental shelf) with what I call a frontier of neoliberalized risk, a lethal product of cut-throat corporate cost-cutting, the collapse of government oversight and regulatory authority and the deepening financialization and securitization of the oil market. These two local pockets of socially produced risk and wrecklessness have come to exceed the capabilities of what passes as risk management and energy security. In this sense, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was produced by a set of structural conditions, a sort of rogue capitalism, not unlike those which precipitated the financial meltdown of 2008. The forms of accumulation unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico over three decades rendered a high-risk enterprise yet more risky, all the while accumulating insecurities and radical uncertainties which made the likelihood of a Deepwater Horizon type disaster highly overdetermined.

The paper aims to elucidate effective strategies for promoting the adoption of green technology innovation within the private sector, thereby enhancing the value of public–private partnership (PPP) projects during the operational phase.

Utilizing prospect theory, the paper considers the government and the public as external driving forces. It establishes a tripartite evolutionary game model composed of government regulators, the private sector and the public. The paper uses numerical simulations to explore the evolutionary stable equilibrium strategies and the determinants influencing each stakeholder.

The paper demonstrates that government intervention and public participation substantially promote green technology innovation within the private sector. Major influencing factors encompass the intensity of pollution taxation, governmental information disclosure and public attention. However, an optimal threshold exists for environmental publicity and innovation subsidies, as excessive levels might inhibit technological innovation. Furthermore, within government intervention strategies, compensating the public for their participation costs is essential to circumvent the public's “free-rider” tendencies and encourage active public collaboration in PPP project innovation.

By constructing a tripartite evolutionary game model, the paper comprehensively examines the roles of government intervention and public participation in promoting green technology innovation within the private sector, offering fresh perspectives and strategies for the operational phase of PPP projects.

Using data from 236 Mexican manufacturing facilities, we examine the relationship between management control systems and structures and environmental compliance and we test the applicability of management control theory in Mexican industry. We report that success in compliance with environmental regulations is significantly associated with degree of management commitment, planning, belief systems, measurement systems, and rewards. This study contributes to the management control literature by empirically testing the efficacy of management control systems and structures in Mexican industry. It contributes evidence about the implementation of environmental strategies in organizations. Finally, by focusing our analysis on Mexican companies, it gives us a rare view of management control and strategy implementation in a developing economy.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

The expectation is that wealthy, democratic nations with strict environmental regulations would benefit corporations selling green products. Yet the opposite may in fact be the case, with authoritarian, poorer nations with minimal environmental oversight providing the best boost to financial performance for green corporations.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists, and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how state regulations become ineffective in holding corporations accountable for environmental degradation in an emerging economy context, with a specific focus on oil and gas and cement industry in Nigeria.

The study draws on capture theory to bring out the factors that have rendered redundant the state intervention to make corporations accountable for their environmental activities. The research setting is the oil and gas and cement industry in Nigeria. Data for the study are derived from both documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews and analysed using a thematic technique.

The findings of the paper demonstrate a regulatory failure to hold corporations to account for their environmental activities. A lack of political will, outdated regulations and the manipulation of the regulators, all have played a part in preventing corporations from being accountable for their activities. In addition, the widespread elite corruption in the country has provided corporations with leeway to manipulate their environmental accountability practices. The study emphasises the need for continuous review of the regulations and efforts to reduce corruption in order to promote corporations' environmental accountability in Nigeria.

The research is limited to Nigeria, oil and gas and cement industries. The theoretical lens can be used to address problem of capture of the regulations and institution in the country.

The practical implication is that it would enhance environmental regulations in Nigeria and emerging economies. It will also provide support from researchers emerging markets on the adoption of capture theory in future research.

It will promote corporate best environmental practices in the country. It will reduce the issues surrounding environmental accountability practices and create awareness on environmental issues among the populace. It will create the impression that corporations will be held accountable for their environmental activities in the country and the need to have improved environmental regulations in the country.

The study adds to the debate on corporate environmental accountability practices engendering insights from the Nigerian oil and gas and cement industry. The paper demonstrates how companies in emerging economies can capture state regulations and how rendering environmental accountability becomes more of rhetoric than a reality with little impacts on the welfare of people and society.

The purpose of this study is to use recent US legislative activity surrounding changes to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)/Clean Air Act in 2010, which changes the practice of environmental policy of a firm, and the unique setting of Utility industry to examine the relationship between a firm’s voluntary accounting disclosure and environmental performance.

This study features hand-collected data of environmental disclosure and examines its relation with environmental performance. To address the endogeneity problem, a difference-in-differences test with propensity score matching is performed to study the impact of policy change on environmental disclosure.

The findings of this study show that measures of environmental performance have a significant and positive association with a firm’s voluntary disclosure. The results from difference-in-differences test show that adjustments in environmental performance after regulatory change have a causal and positive effect on a firm’s voluntary disclosure.

The findings support theories of signaling and voluntary disclosure that better-performing firms provide more information disclosure of their environmental performance.

The findings show real adjustments in firm environmental performance and consistent voluntary disclosure around the enactment of environmental legislation, which may have important implications for environmental rule making bodies and management about the effectiveness of their regulations.

This study is among the first to examine the causal relationship between environmental performance and disclosure within the context of recent changes in US environmental regulation. This study also provides the Utility industry experiment with difference-in-differences test to tackle endogeneity in the relation between performance and disclosure.

This paper responds to recent calls for deeper scrutiny of the institutional contexts of citizen science. In the last few years, at least two dozen civil society organizations in New York and Pennsylvania have begun monitoring the watershed impacts of unconventional natural gas drilling, also known as “fracking.” This study examines the institutional logics that inform these citizen monitoring efforts and probes how relationships with academic science and the regulatory state affect the practices of citizen scientists. We find that the diverse practices of the organizations in the participatory water monitoring field are guided by logics of consciousness-raising, environmental policing, and science. Organizations that initiate monitoring projects typically attempt to combine two or more of these logics as they develop new practices in response to macro-level social and environmental changes. The dominant logic of the field remains unsettled, and many groups appear uncertain about whether and how their practices might have an influence. We conclude that the impacts of macro-level changes, such as the scientization of politics, the rise of neoliberal policy ideas, or even large-scale industrial transformations, are likely to be experienced in field-specific ways.