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The global interest in climate change makes carbon information important for decision-making. This study examines to what extent companies voluntarily disclose and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) information and whether board diversity and industry type explain variations in the level of disclosure and management of GHG information.

Cross-sectional data analysis is used for the Financial Stock Exchange 350 (UK FTSE 350) in 2017. Disclosure of GHG information is measured using the scores of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), whereas board diversity is measured using gender diversity, board tenure and board skills. The control variables include firm size, leverage, industry type, board meetings, board size, board independence and CEO duality. Ordinal logistic regression (OLR) is used for data analysis.

The results indicate that representation of female directors in the board of directors positively influences disclosure and management of GHG information. Conversely, a high percentage of directors with a financial and industrial background negatively affects GHG information, while board tenure has no significant effect on GHG information. Concerning the control variables, only firm size and industry type are significant in their relationships to GHG information.

The main limitation of the study is investigating only few variables of board diversity. Future studies could investigate other variables such as cultural diversity and age diversity. Furthermore, cross-sectional data analysis cannot capture the dynamic casual impact between the determinants of disclosure and management of GHG information. Future studies could use long-term data, which may yield results that are more significant.

The study emphasizes the importance of the role of female directors in ensuring more transparency toward climate change activities. The findings of this study could be of interest to policymakers and stakeholders and could be used to take initiatives to reduce gender bias and increase the percentage of women in the boardroom. It is also likely to be beneficial for investors and stakeholders to evaluate carbon footprint of businesses and to assess the extent to which they meet their environmental responsibility.

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance and greenhouse gas (GHG) disclosures using evidence from the United States.

The study is based on a sample of 168 firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in the United States. Panel data are used covering a period from 2017 to 2020 involving 672 observations.

The results indicate that board size has a positive and significant effect on GHG disclosures while the effect of ownership concentration and insider ownership is negative and significant. The proportion of non-executive directors is not significant. In terms of control variables, firm size and financial slack have a positive effect on GHG disclosures.

The study results add evidence to the already existing literature on the relationship between corporate governance and GHG disclosures using evidence from the United States.

Cities are crucial to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper aims to explore the quality of GHG disclosures by cities via the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and compares them with the expectations of users.

The expectation gap framework is used to examine the GHG disclosure quality of 42 cities. User expectations are determined via a literature review and CDP documentation. City disclosures are reviewed using content analysis.

GHG information at the city level is outdated, incomplete, inconsistent, inaccurate and incomparable and, therefore, to meet user expectations, improvement is needed.

The findings have implications for policymakers, stakeholders and managers. Guidelines are required for better disclosure of GHG information relating to cities, and stakeholders need to develop better skills to understand emissions information. Managers have a responsibility to measure, disclose and mitigate GHG emissions to meet the expectations of stakeholders.

Prior studies focus on GHG disclosures via the CDP by corporations. This is the first accounting study to examine GHG disclosures by cities via the CDP. The expectation gap framework is a novel approach to sustainability disclosure research.

Institutional governance theory is used to explain voluntary corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting in the context of a market governance system in the absence of climate change public policy. This paper seeks to hypothesise that GHG reporting is related to internal organisation systems, external privately promulgated guidance and EU ETS trading.

A two‐stage approach is used. The initial model examines whether firms' GHG disclosures are associated with internal organisation systems factors: environmental management systems (EMS), corporate governance quality and environmental management committees as well as external private guidance provided by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for 187 ASX 300 firms. EU ETS trading is also included. Determinants of the extent and credibility of GHG disclosure is examined in the second stage where an index constructed from the GHG reporting standard “ISO 14064‐1” items for a sub‐sample of 80 disclosing firms as the dependent variable.

Firms that voluntarily disclose GHGs have EMSs (uncertified and certified), higher corporate governance quality and publicly report to the CDP, tend to be large and in the energy and mining and industrial sectors. The credibility and extent of disclosures are related to the existence of a certified EMS, public reporting to the CDP, and use of the GRI. Firms that disclose more credible information are more likely to be large and in the energy and mining, industrial and services sectors.

The paper shows that some proactive but pragmatic Australian firms are disclosing their GHGs voluntarily for competitive advantage in the current market governance system in the absence of public policy.

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 this paper is to investigate the relationship between company-specific factors and the extent of greenhouse gas (GHG) disclosures.

The study is based on a sample of 210 FTSE 350 companies and uses the disclosure index to quantify GHG disclosures made in the annual reports, sustainability reports and web sites in 2011. Ordinary least squares regression is employed to model the relationship between the company-specific factors and the extent of GHG disclosures.

The results indicate that company size, gearing, financial slack and two industries (consumer services and industrials) are significantly associated with GHG disclosures while profitability, liquidity and capital expenditure are not. When the authors disaggregate GHG disclosures into qualitative and quantitative, the results suggest that the effect of some company factors differ depending on the type of GHG disclosures.

The study is cross-sectional. A longitudinal study is necessary to understand the dynamics of GHG disclosures as firms may change their disclosure policy as the importance of GHG increases. The results imply that policy makers need to take into account certain company-specific factors when formulating policy aimed at improving GHG disclosures.

The results add evidence to the growing body of research focusing on the relationship between company-specific factors and GHG disclosure. The study also provides evidence that the effect of some company-specific factors on GHG disclosures differ depending on whether the GHG disclosures are quantitative or qualitative.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission has a detrimental impact on climate change. There is an increasing trend for firms to use disclosure to signal stakeholders about its environmental responsibilities and performance in dealing with climate change. China is one of the countries producing the most carbon emissions. Over the last decade, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are becoming important players in international trade. However, the existing literature provides limited evidence on how Chinese SOEs influence GHG disclosure. Through the lens of stakeholder–agency theory, this chapter studies the top 300 listed firms to examine the relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. The result suggests a negative relationship between Chinese SOEs and the likelihood of GHG disclosure. This could be explained as a consequence of the managers' political self-interests, economic and policy-oriented decision-making process and the power differentials between the government and SOE managers. This research extends the GHG literature to Chinese SOEs context, providing direct evidence on how state ownership impacts on GHG disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether four corporate governance mechanisms (board size, non-executive directors, ownership concentration and directors’ share ownership) influence the extent of greenhouse gas (GHG) disclosure.

The study uses a mixed-methods approach based on a sample of 62 FTSE 1,000 firms. Firstly, the authors surveyed the senior management of 62 UK-listed firms in the FTSE 1,000 index to determine whether the corporate governance mechanisms influence their GHG disclosure decisions. Secondly, the authors used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to model the relationship between the corporate governance mechanisms and GHG disclosure scores of the 62 firms.

The survey and OLS regression results both suggest that corporate governance mechanisms (board size and NEDs) do not influence GHG disclosures. However, the results of the two approaches differ, in that the survey results suggest that corporate governance mechanisms (ownership concentration and directors’ share ownership) do not influence the extent of GHG disclosure, while the opposite is true with the OLS regression results.

The sample size of 62 firms is small which could affect the generalisability of the study. The mixed results mean that more mixed-methods approach is needed to improve the understanding of the role of corporate governance in GHG disclosures.

The use of mixed-methods to examine whether corporate governance mechanisms determine the extent of GHG voluntary disclosure provides additional insights not provided in prior studies.

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of external assurance on the level of voluntary corporate climate change disclosures by Finnish firms.

The sample of this study includes 228 firm-year observations over the period 2008–2015 for listed Finnish companies that have issued sustainability reports and responded to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) questionnaire at least once during the sample period. The authors conduct a panel regression analysis to study the afore-mentioned linkage. In addition, the Tobit regression model is also estimated to check the robustness of our findings.

The findings suggest that assurance has a highly significant positive impact on the level of corporate climate change disclosures even after controlling for the effect of a number of control variables. Moreover, among the control variables, firm size and asset age are found to have significant effect on the extent of carbon emissions disclosure. Furthermore, the additional analysis reveals that the type of assurance providers (accounting firms vs non-accounting firms) and the type of financial auditors (Big4 financial auditors vs non-Big4 financial auditors) do not influence the level of climate change disclosure of assured companies.

This research is subject to certain limitations. First, the source of the data used in this research is the CDP database which has limitations in that it is a voluntary disclosure process where all the observations collected are self-reported by the responding firms. This may bias the reported findings. Second, our sample includes only listed companies and hence the results might have limited explanatory capacity for unlisted firms.

By using the results of this research, corporate managers will be able to reduce the information asymmetry between various stakeholders and them through disclosure of accurate, reliable and credible environmental information. Such disclosures will, in turn, allow socially responsible investors to choose eco-friendly investments and will thus enable them to make appropriate investment decisions.

Research on the external assurance-corporate climate change disclosure nexus is scarce. This study addresses this gap in the nonfinancial disclosure assurance literature by demonstrating that external assurance increases the level of voluntary corporate climate change disclosure. Drawing on stakeholder-agency theory, this study views external assurance as a monitoring structure that potentially curbs the monitoring problem between corporate managers and other stakeholders and increases the amount of climate change disclosures making a possible avenue for the reduction of the information asymmetry between them.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in voluntary carbon disclosure between developing and developed countries and the role of resource availability in explaining these differences.

The authors used a sample consisting of 2,045 large firms from 15 countries and representing divergent industries that released Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) company reports in 2009. Profitability, leverage and growth were used as proxies for the degree of resource availability and the firm's participation in the CDP was used as a proxy for carbon disclosure propensity.

Consistent with the authors' predictions, the empirical results show that the carbon disclosure propensity is correlated in the right direction with resource availability proxies; this relationship is stronger in developing nations, suggesting that the shortage of resources is one reason for the lack of commitment to carbon mitigation and disclosure in these countries. The results are robust when disclosure motivation proxies are controlled for. In addition, it is shown that firms tend to disclose carbon information if their shares are owned by CDP signatories, because it allows them to be viewed as more powerful stakeholders. This finding, which enhances the validity of stakeholder theory, previously has not been documented in the literature.

The findings are relevant to the world's largest organisations, as determined by their market capitalisation. Thus, caution should be exercised to generalise the paper's inferences to small or medium‐sized organisations.

The evidence suggests that resource shortages may constrain a firm management's carbon decisions. As the regulatory environment becomes more stringent, firms, particularly those in developing countries need to take a more proactive strategy to tackle global warming challenges and balance the need to achieve financial goals and prevent carbon pollution with their limited resources.

Although prior studies typically considered external pressures that motivated voluntary environmental disclosure, the paper's results offer extra insight and suggest that resource restriction provides a complementary explanation – largely ignored in the existing literature – for variation in the carbon‐disclosure propensity of firms.