Influencing Factors on ESG Rating Divergence of Chinese A-share Listed Companies
Guo Kun, BianYuan, Li Yichong, Ma Dandan, Ji Qiang
摘要：随着可持续投资理念的不断发展，企业ESG信息已成为投资者考量企业发展潜力的重要维度。然而，不同评级机构的ESG评价标准存在较大差异，导致企业ESG评级存在较大分歧，制约其经营与发展。本文基于五家评级机构对2018—2021年A股上市公司的ESG评级数据，发现ESG分歧在中国上市公司普遍存在，并呈现逐年上升的趋势。同时，评级机构对相同上市公司内外部信息评价标准不统一，以及不同上市公司的 ESG 治理能力及对 ESG 信息关注度的较大差异是造成ESG评级分歧的主要原因。实证分析发现，拥有更多ESG突发事件、更高自主信息披露程度以及更高管理层环境与气候风险关注度的企业，其评级机构间的ESG评级分歧越高；而企业管理层中女性董事占比、具有海外教育或工作经历的董事占比、学者型董事占比和中青年董事占比的提升则可以显著缓解ESG评级分歧。建议加快建立统一化、标准化的企业ESG数据标准和评价体系，推动形成规范的信息披露制度与环境友好的内部控制制度，有效降低ESG分歧带来的负面影响。
关键词：ESG评级体系；ESG分歧；自主信息披露；管理层特征
Abstract: With the development of sustainable investment, ESG information has become an important dimension forinvestors to assess the development potential of an enterprise. However, due to the significant differences in the ESGevaluation criteria of different rating agencies, there exists substantial disagreement among ESG rating agencies,which hinders the operations and development of enterprises. Based on ESG ratings from five agencies in China from2018 to 2021, we uncover that ESG disagreement is widespread among Chinese listed companies and is on the riseyear by year. Meanwhile, rating agencies’various information evaluation methods, as well as companies’differentESG governance abilities and attention, are main factors of ESG rating disagreements. Empirical results show thatcompanies with more ESG incidents, more voluntary information disclosure, and higher attention to environmentalproblems experience higher ESG disagreements. Moreover, introducing more scholars, women, youngsters and peoplewith overseas experience into board of directors could perhaps mitigate this disagreement.It is recommended to accelerate the establishment of unified and standardized corporate ESG data standards and evaluation methodology, promote standardized information disclosure systems and environmentally friendly internal control system, effectively reduce the negative impacts of ESG divergences.
Keywords: ESG Rating; ESG Disagreement; Voluntary Information Disclosure; Management Characteristics
基金资助：国家自然科学基金专项项目“中国及全球能源转型风险、金融风险、资源风险和气候损失等建模和预测研究”（72348003）。
