Blockchain-Enabled Environmental Accounting Transparency: Supply Chain Finance, Green Disclosure Quality, and Firm Heterogeneity

Abstract

This study examines whether blockchain-enabled accounting and supply-chain records improve environmental accounting transparency. Using a panel framework designed around Chinese listed firms from 2015 to 2023, the paper links blockchain adoption, supply chain finance, green disclosure quality, and firm heterogeneity. The results indicate that blockchain adoption is positively associated with green disclosure quality after controlling for profitability, leverage, growth, cash flow, ownership concentration, inventories, board independence, audit quality, firm fixed effects, and year fixed effects. Supply chain finance partly transmits this association by turning verifiable invoices, receivables, and payment histories into credible financial signals. The effect is statistically clearer in technology-intensive firms and rises after firm-size thresholds, suggesting that digital capability and organizational scale condition blockchain governance benefits. The findings contribute to environmental accounting, digital finance, and disclosure research by showing how distributed ledgers can support credible green reporting without replacing conventional assurance and regulation. The paper also offers practical implications for firms, investors, lenders, and regulators seeking auditable environmental information in supply-chain ecosystems.

Keywords: Blockchain; environmental accounting; green disclosure quality; supply chain finance; firm heterogeneity; information transparency