DETERMINANTS OF CLIMATE-RELATED FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS

As countries worldwide are concerned about climate change issues, the importance of climate-related financial disclosure has grown in recent years. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) has published a framework to assist companies in preparing such reports. However, the quality of climate-related financial disclosure by companies is still discouraging. This study aims to review prior studies on the determinants of climate-related financial disclosure in alignment with TCFD recommendations. On the basis of the review, this study proposes environmental performance, corporate governance (i.e., CSR committee, chief sustainability officer, directors’ knowledge/expertise on sustainability issues) and share ownership (i.e., government share ownership and foreign share ownership), as key determinants of TCFD-aligned climate reporting. This study employs five theoretical frameworks, i.e., agency, signaling, legitimacy, stakeholder and institutional theories to formulate six hypotheses. Our conceptual analysis contributes to the literature by highlighting the relationships between these determinants and TCFD climate-related financial disclosure.