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Evaluation of Environmental Information Disclosure of Listed Companies in China’s Heavy Pollution Industries: A Text Mining-Based Methodology

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  • Rongjiang Cai

    (School of Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
    School of Economics and Management, Ningbo University of Technology, Ningbo 315211, China)

  • Tao Lv

    (School of Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China)

  • Xu Deng

    (School of Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China)

Abstract

Environmental information disclosure (EID) of listed companies is a significant and essential reference for assessing their environmental protection commitment. However, the content and form of EID are complex, and previous assessment studies involved manual scoring mainly by the experts in this field. It is subjective and has low timeliness. Therefore, this paper proposes an automatic evaluation framework of EID quality based on text mining (TM), including the EID index system’s construction, automatic scoring of environmental information disclosure quality, and EID index calculation. Furthermore, based on the EID of 801 listed companies in China’s heavy pollution industry from 2013 to 2017, case studies are conducted. The case study results show that the overall quality of the EID of listed companies in China’s heavily polluting industries is low, and there is a gap differentiation between the 16 industries. Compared with the subjective manual scoring method, TM evaluation can evaluate the quality of EID more effectively and accurately. It has great potential and can become an essential tool for the sustainable development of society and listed companies.

Suggested Citation

  • Rongjiang Cai & Tao Lv & Xu Deng, 2021. "Evaluation of Environmental Information Disclosure of Listed Companies in China’s Heavy Pollution Industries: A Text Mining-Based Methodology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-23, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:10:p:5415-:d:553186
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    1. Die Wu & Hafeezullah Memon, 2022. "Public Pressure, Environmental Policy Uncertainty, and Enterprises’ Environmental Information Disclosure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-18, June.

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