Purpose

This study empirically tests a comprehensive set of relevant factors to explain environmental reporting quality. This study aims to understand whether environmental assurance has a direct effect on “environmental reporting quality”. In addition, this study also aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and the quality of environmental reporting as measured by voluntary and timely reporting.

Design/methodology/approach

A number of econometric techniques are used including panel data specifications using a sample of French listed companies in SBF120 for the period 2012–2017.

Findings

The results demonstrate that the presence of an environmental audit committee and the size of the environmental external assurance firm has a significant effect on the level of voluntary reporting of environmental information. The results also reveal that the presence of the environmental audit committee, as well as the corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee, the size of the environmental external assurance and corporate governance index, affect the timely environmental reporting.

Research limitations/implications

This study helps all market participants to more comprehensively evaluate the quality of environmental reporting in the French context and highlights whether various factors could affect the quality of the environmental information disclosed using a multi-theoretical framework.

Originality/value

This paper fills the gap in the literature by highlighting an unexplored field of literature about the quality of environmental reporting by linking on the division of the quality of environmental information reporting into sub-dimensions (voluntary reporting and timely reporting) in the French context. To the knowledge, no empirical study has been done on the timely reporting of environmental information in the French context or other contexts. The originality of the work consists of the fact that it is one of the first works that deal with the relationship between environmental external assurance, corporate governance and the quality of environmental reporting.

中文翻译：

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环境报告质量影响因素的实证调查：来自法国的证据

目的

本研究实证检验了一组综合相关因素，以解释环境报告质量。本研究旨在了解环境保证是否对“环境报告质量”有直接影响。此外，本研究还旨在通过自愿和及时报告来检验公司治理与环境报告质量之间的关系。

设计/方法/方法

使用了许多计量经济学技术，包括使用 2012-2017 年 SBF120 中法国上市公司样本的面板数据规范。

发现

结果表明，环境审计委员会的存在和环境外部保证公司的规模对环境信息的自愿报告水平有显着影响。结果还表明，环境审计委员会以及企业社会责任（CSR）委员会的存在、环境外部保证和公司治理指数的规模，都会影响环境报告的及时性。

研究限制/影响

本研究帮助所有市场参与者更全面地评估法国背景下的环境报告质量，并使用多理论框架强调各种因素是否会影响环境信息披露的质量。

原创性/价值

本文通过在法国语境中将环境信息报告质量划分为子维度（自愿报告和及时报告）来突出有关环境报告质量的未探索文献领域，从而填补了文献中的空白。据了解，在法国语境或其他语境下，没有对及时报告环境信息进行实证研究。该作品的独创性在于它是最早处理环境外部保证、公司治理和环境报告质量之间关系的作品之一。