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Existing studies have shown that all kinds of audit risks greatly affect audit pricing for accounting firms. However, it is still unclear whether environmental risks caused by environmental violations lead to a high audit fee. This study aims to investigate whether accounting firms raise audit fees after client firms have violated environmental regulations or have been punished for such violations.

This study selects listed firms with environmental violations between 1994 and 2018 as the treatment sample and match the treatment group with a control group of firms from the same industry, of similar asset size and with no environmental violations for the same time period. Then, this study constructs a difference-in-difference (DID) model to explore the impact of firm environmental violations (or punishment for environmental violations) on the audit pricing.

This study finds that accounting firms tend to raise audit fees after client firms have violated environmental regulations or have been punished for such violations, and this increasing effect is different due to environmental regulation intensity, regional span and internal control defects. Further evidences show that environmental violations influence audit fees through financial restatement, whereas environmental punishments impact audit fees through earnings management and risk-taking.

This study enriches the literature on determining factors of audit fees and economic consequences of environmental violations and provides empirical supports to understand the pricing behavior of accounting firms.

This research investigates whether focal firms employ strategic supply chain information disclosure, focusing on the concealment of supplier and customer identities, as part of their supply chain environmental risk management strategies (supplier sustainability risk and customer loss risk, respectively).

Using a panel dataset of Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2019 and utilizing the suppliers’ environmental punishment of peer firms (peer events) as an exogenous shock and employing ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, this study conducts a regression analysis to test how focal firms disclose the identities of their suppliers and customers.

Our results indicate that focal firms prefer to hide the identities of their suppliers and customers following the environmental punishment of peer firms’ suppliers. In addition, supplier concentration weakens the effect of withholding supplier identities, whereas customer concentration strengthens the effect of hiding customer identities. Mechanism analysis shows that firms hide supplier identities to avoid their reputation being affected and hide customer identities to prevent the deterioration of customers’ reputations and thus impact their market share.

Our study reveals that reputation spillover is another crucial factor in supply chain transparency. It is also pioneering in applying the anonymity theory to explain focal firms’ information disclosure strategy in supply chains.

This chapter draws on previous work calling for a narrative criminology sensitive to fictional stories about how we have instigated or sustained harmful action with respect to the environment. It begins by offering some defining features of narrative criminology, before turning to two examples of narrative criminological work focused on environmental crime and/or harm. One analyzes a corporate (offender's) website; the other examines attorneys' stories of environmental wrongdoing. Together, they depict a cultural narrative in the US of the causes, consequences, punishments (or lack thereof) and corporate representations of environmental harm. Next, this chapter turns to a discussion of examples of depictions or representations of environmental harm and protection in the literature. Here, the focus is on fictional works that are explicitly environmental – where the subject, plot and message centre on one or more environmental issues, such as a particular harm, its cause or causes and possible responses thereto. Finally, this chapter considers ‘allegories of environmental harm,’ examining literature that is less overtly environmental. As an illustration, it suggests an interpretation of the American children's story, Muncus Agruncus: A Bad Little Mouse (Watson, 1976), as a cautionary tale of Western hubris in the face of environmental catastrophe – with the goal of demonstrating how green criminologists have attempted to identify environmental lessons and messages in works with ostensibly other or broader messages. Overall, the intent is to acknowledge both that cultural narratives (and our interpretation of them) change and to demonstrate (the importance of) human agency to transform those narratives (and our interpretation thereof).

This paper aims to analyze what Samarco and Brazilian magazines speak and say about Mariana’s environmental crime. Discover their doxa in this subject. Interpret the speakings, sayings and doxas through the theories of the treadmills of production, crime and law.

It is a qualitative and documental research and a narrative analysis. Regarding the documents: 45 were from public authorities, 14 from Samarco Mineração S.A. and 73 from Brazilian magazines. Theoretically, the authors resorted to Bourdieusian sociology (speaking, saying and doxa) and the treadmills of production, crime and law theories.

Samarco: speaking – mission statements; saying – detailed information and economic and financial concerns; doxa – assistance discourse. Brazilian magazines: speaking – external agents; saying – agreements; doxa – attribution, aggravations, historical facts, impacts and protests.

The absence of discussions that addressed this fatality, with its respective consequences, from an agenda that exposed and denounced how it exacerbated race, class and gender inequalities.

Regarding Mariana’s environmental crime: Samarco Mineração S.A. speaks and says through the treadmill of production theory and supports its doxa through the treadmill of crime theory, and Brazilian magazines speak and say through the treadmill of law theory and support their doxa through the treadmill of crime theory.

To provoke reflections on the relationship between the mining companies and the communities where they settle to develop their productive activities.

Concerning environmental crime in perspective, submit it to a theoretical interpretation based on sociological references, approach it in a debate linked to environmental criminology, and describe it through narratives exposed by the guilty company and by Brazilian magazines with high circulation.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a feasible scheme for local governments to regulate corporate environmental data fraud and to discuss whether the influence of the construction of online information disclosure platform on the environmental behavior of enterprises is better than the offline spot check.

Under the background of changing environmental fees into taxes in China, this paper conducts evolutionary game analysis between local governments and enterprises in view of the existing problem of environmental data fraud. Furthermore, through the introduction of government information disclosure platform, this paper discusses the impact of the integration of direct government regulation and indirect public concern regulation on the evolution of environmental behavior of both sides. Finally, the evolutionary game is simulated by adopting system dynamics to analyses the implementation effect of different cases on the game process and game equilibrium.

The results showed that the introduction of information disclosure platform mechanism can effectively suppress the fluctuations existing in the game play and stabilize the game. Moreover, it is worth noting that the regulatory effect of local governments investing part of the monitoring cost in the construction of online information platform is proved to be better than that of putting all the monitoring cost into offline investigation. While optimizing the monitoring cost allocation, the local government still needs to attach great importance to organically combine the attention of the public and media with the governmental official platform.

The obtained results confirm that the proposed model can assist local government in refining the effects of their environmental regulatory decisions, especially in the case of corporate data fraud under environmental tax enforcement.

Previous literature only suggested that local governments should reduce the cost of supervision to change the corporate behavior to a better direction, but no further in-depth study. Thus, this study fills the gap by discussing the positive transformation effect of local government cost allocation scheme on corporate environmental behavior.

The alienation of megaproject environmental responsibility (MER) behavior is destructive, but its mechanism has not been clearly depicted. Based on fraud triangle theory and the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method, this study explored the combined effect of antecedent factors on alienation of MER behavior.

Based on the fraud triangle theory and literature review, eight influencing factors associated with the alienation of MER behavior were first identified. Subsequently, the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis was used in this study to reveal configurations influencing alienation of MER behavior.

The study found nine configurations of MER behavioral alienation antecedent factors, integrated into three types of driving modes, i.e. “economic pressure + learning effect,” “institutional defect + moral rejection,” and “information asymmetry + economic pressure + expectation pressure.”

By analyzing the configuration effects of various induced conditions, this study puts forward a comprehensive analysis framework to solve the alienation of MER behavior in the megaprojects and a practical strategy to control alienation of MER behavior.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the federal sentencing of organizational probation for environmental offenders using the focal concerns. Those organizations that are more blameworthy should be sentenced to longer probation terms. However, little research has been conducted to examine whether probation is being sentenced accordingly. This is especially true for organizations convicted of environmental offenses, which are often thought of as deserving of increased penalties compared to non-environmental offenses.

This study used quantitative federal sentencing data from 2011 to 2020 (n = 1,436) and eight potential measures of blameworthiness grounded in the focal concerns.

The results showed that those organizations convicted of environmental crimes received 30% longer probation sentences than those not convicted of environmental crimes. However, additional measurements of blameworthiness derived from the existing literature of focal concerns were not relevant to probation sentencing decisions.

This study extends the application of the focal concerns and increases the body of knowledge regarding the sentencing of federal environmental offenders.

Examines the emergence of environmental legislation and the response of organizations. Most legal academics have attempted to explain these responses in the context of rational choice theory, using an economic framework such as the rational polluter model. Argues that whilst the rational polluter model offers a partial explanation of organizations’ behaviour in response to environmental legislation, it does not explain why the majority of organizations are law abiding. Examines work on legitimacy theory, and by drawing on that work and placing it in the context of case law, suggests that it offers a better explanatory framework.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on pollution emissions and how environmental regulation affects this relationship.

In the empirical research, the authors selected panel data for 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2019 as samples. First, the authors used the instrumental variable method to verify the existence of the above hypotheses in China. Then, the authors analyzed the moderating effect of different types of environmental regulations on the environmental effects of FDI. Next, in further discussion, the authors analyzed the difference between the environmental effect and the moderating effect in different time periods and regions, respectively. Finally, the authors discussed whether the different intensities of environmental regulations lead to the transfer effect of FDI in choosing investment destinations.

The result shows that FDI can help reduce pollution emissions and create a “pollution halo” effect, which is enhanced by command-and-control regulation but suppressed by market-based incentives. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party has weakened the pollution halo effect of FDI, while the environmental effect of FDI in the eastern region is not significant, but in the middle and western regions, there is a significant pollution halo effect and a positive moderating effect of environmental regulations. Finally, further analysis reveals that FDI has a transfer effect under command-and-control environmental regulations.

First, the main purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between FDI and pollution emissions from the perspective of heterogeneous environmental regulation. Therefore, there is no detailed discussion on their effect mechanism of them. Second, limited by data, the authors adopt the single index to measure the stringency index of command-and-control and market-based incentive environmental regulations in China. The single index may not be able to fully reflect the intensity of regional environmental regulation, so the construction of a composite indicator is necessary. These shortcomings are the focus of the authors' future research.

Under the guidance of high-quality development, the conclusions above can provide reference for adjusting FDI policies and improving environmental regulation policies.

The innovations in this paper can be summarized as the following four dimensions: First, the authors use the instrumental variable (IV) method to address endogeneity in the relationship between FDI and pollution emission, which can further ensure the robustness of the research results and increases the credibility of the paper. Second, the authors distinguish between two types of environmental regulations to investigate their moderating effect on the environmental impact of FDI. Third, the authors consider the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of both the environmental effects of FDI and the moderating effect of regulation. Last, the authors analyze the spatial spillover of environmental regulation through the study of the transfer effect.

As a consequence of the proposal of the Carbon Neutral and Carbon Peak policy in 2020, the Chinese Government is paying more attention to developing sustainability performance. This study aims to assess the direct influence of country-level and corporate anti-corruption measures on environmental, social and governance (ESG) and its three dimensions, besides ascertaining the moderating role of firm size.

This study used the system generalized method of moments on a sample of 820 Chinese listed firms from 2012 to 2021.

The findings show that country-level and corporate corruption negatively affect ESG performance. Corporate anti-corruption measures have a more pronounced positive influence on the sustainability performance of small firms than large firms due to the limited resources, lower political position and weaker refusal power of small firms.

The study has great implications for governments, corporate boards and ESG rating agencies. Government and corporate boards should mitigate the risks of country-level and corporate corruption to attain sustainable development goals. Rating agencies should add country-level and corporate corruption into the ESG evaluation system.

Some empirical results have proven that anti-corruption measures help reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, but few evidence shows how country-level and corporate corruption affect ESG and its three dimensions.