Environmental Ratings and Subsequent Reported Emissions Intensity: A Layered Validity Test in China and Korea

Environmental ratings combine corporate policies and performance, but their interpretation depends on the criterion, horizon and reporting boundary. We apply a four-layer validity framework to a retrospectively reconstructed 2014–2025 panel of 209 Chinese and 115 Korean listed firms selected based on data coverage. Fixed-effects models estimate within-firm associations. In the common 2019–2023 exposure window, none of the 12 country-specific or between-country associations with next-year emissions intensity survives Benjamini–Hochberg adjustment (minimum q = 0.920). Two- and three-year associations emerge in the extended history; their statistical classification depends on temporal support and the finite sample covariance correction. Ratings converge with selected Chinese climate action and disclosure assessments. Korean measurement agreement is strongly boundary-dependent: excluding four firms with documentary-supported scope mismatches raises log-scale concordance between provider and regulatory emissions from 0.734 to 0.989 across 142 remaining pairs from 18 firms. Recent reports directly document particular years rather than every historical boundary. This study contributes a validation protocol linking each claim to its criterion, temporal support, organizational scope and precision. These results guide the joint use of ratings and emissions evidence without attributing causal effects or establishing equivalence to zero.