Information disclosure on environmental effort by firms for socially responsible investment

最近，社会责任投资引起了人们的关注。关于公司环境努力的信息披露对于推广对社会负责的投资十分重要。本研究以碳信息披露项目为研究对象，以2006 - 2008年为样本期，考察影响企业信息披露的因素。样本企业是CDP日本500强中温室气体排放量大的企业，因变量是表示环境信息提供程度的变量。自变量是指那些被认为与公司信息披露有关的变量。估计结果表明，外资持股比例、赫芬达尔指数、员工人数、广告支出和负债资产率对企业环境信息披露有统计学显著影响。

Recently, socially responsible investment attracts attention. Information disclosure on firms’ environmental efforts is important for diffusion of socially responsible investment. This study focuses on Carbon Disclosure Project and the purposeof this study is to examine the factors that influence information disclosure by firms.The sample period is from 2006 through 2008. The sample firms is the firms that are included in CDP Japan 500 and that emit large amount of greenhouse gas emissions.The dependent variable is the variable that shows the degree of providing environmental information. The independent variables are those that are considered to be associated with the information disclosure by firms. The estimation results show that the foreign shareholding ratio, Herfindahl Index, number of employees, advertisement expenditure and debt asset ratio have statistically significant effect on environmental information disclosure by firms.