Mandatory disclosure,greenhouse gas emissions and the cost of equity capital: UK evidence of a U-shaped relationship

This paper examines the effects of disclosing greenhouse gas (GHG) information mandatorily on the cost of equity capital (COC) using a longitudinal unbalanced panel database of the United Kingdom's FTSE 350 firms for the period 2011–2016. We use a nonlinear panel quantile regression (PQR) model to examine the relationship between GHG disclosure (GHGD) and COC in the United Kingdom. This technique was supplemented by conducting a two-step generalised method of moment (GMM) estimation to address any concerns related to the potential existence of endogeneity problems. Our findings suggest that high-level GHGD appeared to be negatively associated with COC up to a certain level, which is known as the turning point; then, any increase in GHGD is likely to increase the COC. This means that the nonlinear association between GHGD and COC is evidenced in our study and takes a U shape. Likewise, our findings are associative of a moderating effect of the 2013 carbon disclosure regulation (CDR) on the GHGD–COC nexus. We argue that mandatory GHGD and GHG risk are linked so that those companies that are associated with higher GHG risk have a tendency to be better disclosers. Consequently, we urge regulators to design GHGD regulations in a way that mirrors corporate environmental risk and leads to a lower COC in order to align the interests of corporations with those of the society at large.     

棒材生产线冷床下卸钢系统的应用

针对棒材生产线上冷床下卸钢系统机械效率低、运行周期长,不能适应快节奏生产的现状,采用以工业以太网为主、DP网为辅的网络通讯,应用西门子FM350-2高速计数器,通过有效的数学计算模型,结合变频器和液压传动控制技术,实现网络自动化控制。     

Corporate Social Responsibility: Exploring Stakeholder Relationships and Programme Reporting across Leading FTSE Companies

Although it is now widely recognised by business leaders that their companies need to accept a broader responsibility than short-term profits, recent research suggests that as corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social reporting become more widespread, there is little empirical evidence of the range of stakeholders addressed through their CSR programmes and how such programmes are reported. Through a CSR framework which was developed in an exploratory study, we explore the nature of stakeholder relationships reported across leading FTSE companies and the importance they attach to communicating both social and business outcomes. It is evident from the hypotheses tested that the bigger FTSE companies, particularly extraction companies and telecoms, are more adept at identifying and prioritising their stakeholders, and linking CSR programmes to business and social outcomes. However, we draw the general conclusion that building stronger stakeholder relationships through CSR programmes – other than with customers – is not currently a priority for most companies. We also conclude that a limited sophistication in managing multiple stakeholders may compromise the impact of CSR upon business and social results. Finally, the managerial implications and the contribution of our study are discussed before closing with an acknowledgement of the limitations of this work and suggestions for further research.     

Corporate environmental non‐reporting – a UK FTSE 350 perspective

Until relatively recently the majority of large publicly listed UK companies have not produced annual environmental reports. Of particular note is the slow take‐up of environmental reporting amongst the UK's top 350 companies, the FTSE 350. Using the results of a postal questionnaire, the reluctance of a majority of the FTSE 350 to voluntarily report is linked to 13 drawbacks. Results from non‐reporting respondents to the questionnaire allowed the relative importance of these drawbacks to be placed in a ranked order. Senior management doubt over the advantages of reporting was shown to be the most important drawback, closely followed by the effort required for data collection. A comparison in the uptake of corporate environmental management practices (other than reporting) was also made amongst reporters and non‐reporters. Reporters were shown to have a generally higher level of uptake, although company sector type and size was influential on environmental engagement overall. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Enterprise resource planning enabling segmental information reporting practices of UK‐FTSE 100

The ERP impact on management accounting practices has been widely recognised as having a knowledge gap in relation to how it may facilitate Segmental Information Reporting following the International Financial Reporting Standard No. 8’s (IFRS‐8) management approach. This study contributes to filling this gap by investigating the joint effect of the ERP and IFRS‐8 Post‐Implementation Review (PIR) on dimensions: quality, quantity and the reporters’ identity of FTSE‐100 companies in the period 2013–2017. The study found that ERP is significantly and positively associated with the dimensions of segmental information reporting. The implications of this study extend research and the practices of segmental reporting on the importance of ERP in operationalising segmental reporting and in understanding variations.     

人工砂在管桩混凝土中的应用

本文确定了C80F350人工砂混凝土配合比的基本参数,测试了其和易性、力学性能及耐久性能,并进行了人工砂混凝土管桩试生产,对桩体进行了抗弯试验,对桩体切块进行了抗压及抗冻试验。结果表明:(1)采用现有机制砂与天然细砂按一定比例混合而成的混合砂可以配制出与天然砂混凝土性能同样优异的C80F350人工砂混凝土;(2)C80F350人工砂混凝土与天然砂混凝土相比具有抗压及劈裂抗拉强度高、抗冻及抗渗性好、氯离子渗透系数低、弹模大等特点;(3)C80F350人工砂混凝土与现有管桩生产工艺相适应,管桩桩体抗弯性能、切块抗压强度及耐久性能均能满足相关要求。     

The Impact of Changes in the FTSE 100 Index

This paper investigates FTSE 100 index membership changes, which are determined quarterly by market capitalization and should have no information content. Return reversal around index additions and deletions suggests that buying (selling) pressure moves prices temporarily away from equilibrium, consistent with short‐term downward sloping demand curves. In contrast to widely reported results for the S&P 500, there is no evidence of permanent price effects. Further results suggest that investor awareness and monitoring due to index membership do not explain the price effects. There is statistically significant anticipatory trading in stocks that just fail to be promoted to the FTSE 100.     

Empirical Analyses of Extreme Value Models for the South African Mining Index

While the classical normality assumption is simple to implement, it is well known to underestimate the leptokurtic behaviour demonstrated in most financial data. After examining properties of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Mining Index returns, we propose two extreme value models to fit its negative tail with a higher degree of accuracy. The generalised extreme value distribution (GEVD) is fitted using the block maxima approach, while the generalised Pareto distribution (GPD) is fitted using the peaks‐over‐threshold method. Numerical assessment of value‐at‐risk (VaR) estimates indicates that both GEVD and GPD increasingly outperform the normal distribution as we move further into the lower tail. In addition, GEVD produces lower estimates relative to that of the historical VaR, and GPD provides slightly more conservative estimates for adequate capitalisation.     

Strategic Formulation and Communication of Corporate Environmental Policy Statements: UK Firms’ Perspective

This paper suggests that most of the FTSE-listed firms in the United Kingdom use corporate environmental policy statements (CEPS) to communicate their strategic intent of what environmental and social targets to attain, and broad guidelines of how they will progressively achieve all the required changes and new developments. In this paper, we link the contents of CEPS of a sample of FTSE-listed firms (from the chemical, pharmaceutical and food industry that are committed to develop business excellence) to the voluntary participation in the environmental benchmarking exercise and the various levels of environmental performance therein. The findings suggest that in contrast to their non-participating counterparts, the strategic focus of the participating firms transcends from simply mitigating any potential damages that their operations might have on the environment to business process reengineering and building new implementation capabilities. However, not all of the participating firms achieved excellence in their environmental performance, the high performing firms outweighed their counterparts on their emphasis on technological competence and competitiveness, and interestingly, the average-performing firms would use the strategic emphasis on social responsibility to compensate for their mediocre technological competence.     

Sustainable Development and Corporate Financial Performance: A Study Based on the FTSE4Good IBEX Index

The social and environmental aspects of business investment and financing are becoming increasingly important. Most studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) focus on analysing the relationship between company performance in the financial and social fields. However, the results obtained have not been conclusive, mainly due to the variables used to measure CSR. In order to simplify its measurement, in this work we used an empirical analytical method to determine possible differences between the financial variables of firms considered to be socially responsible and those not considered to be such. The results obtained show that socially responsible corporations obtain higher profits for the same level of systematic risk and show greater sensitivity to market changes, leverage levels and company size. This pioneering study is the first to make use of the first, and at the present time only, Spanish sustainability index, the FTSE4Good IBEX. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.