What Do Firms Say in Reporting on Impacts of Climate Change? An Approach to Monitoring ESG Actions and Environmental Policy

This paper focuses on two research questions arising from the 2010 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Advisory on climate change reporting: (1) How does the discussion of climate change in SEC filings change after the Advisory? and (2) What are firms talking about when they talk about climate change?<br> Findings were obtained from the 218,000 10-K filings to the SEC during the 2000--2019 period. The study develops and applies text mining methodology based on extracting information from the ``semantic associates'' in the ``neighborhoods'' of indicative terms. On (1) it finds that climate change-related reporting does increase substantially after the SEC guidance. On (2) a nuanced picture emerges. Firms with comparatively larger transition risks tend to discuss climate change comparatively more, focusing on regulation-related topics. Firms exposed to the physical risks of climate change tend to discuss climate change somewhat less, focusing on meteorological topics. The results enrich our understanding regarding environmental policies and firms' behaviors regarding climate change. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.本研究聚焦于2010年美国证券交易委员会（U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC）发布的气候变化披露咨询意见所引出的两个研究问题：（1）在该咨询意见发布后，美国证券交易委员会备案文件中关于气候变化的讨论内容发生了何种变化？（2）企业在讨论气候变化时，其涉及的具体议题是什么？ 本研究的样本数据取自2000年至2019年间提交至美国证券交易委员会的21.8万份10-K表格备案文件。本研究开发并应用了一种文本挖掘方法，该方法基于从指示性术语的“邻域”中提取“语义关联项”的思路展开。针对第一个研究问题，研究发现，在该委员会发布指导意见后，与气候变化相关的披露内容确实出现了大幅增长。针对第二个研究问题，研究结果呈现出细致入微的图景：转型风险相对更高的企业会更多地讨论气候变化议题，且其讨论重点集中在监管相关话题；而面临气候变化物理风险的企业则相对较少讨论气候变化，其讨论重点集中在气象相关话题。本研究结果深化了我们对环境政策以及企业气候变化相关行为的认知，并提供了理论与实践层面的启示。