Internet use for corporate environmental reporting: current challenges—technical benefits—practical guidance

The huge opportunities of using the internet for corporate reporting are arranged in a comprehensive system of technical benefits. In order to give a tangible example and describe practical use thoroughly, the benefits are focused on environmental reporting but they can be transferred in major parts also to financial, social or sustainability reporting—seen as a currently emerging trend towards integrated financial, environmental and social reporting. In more detail, the system of internet‐specific benefits is illustrated by four main categories: benefits concerning the underlying purposes of publishing reports, benefits concerning the entire reporting process, benefits concerning the report contents and benefits concerning the report design. In terms of corporate reporting, professional internet use will enhance the way in which companies give information, communicate and manage their business internally and externally, benefiting all members involved that are reporting companies, addressed key target groups and other stakeholders such as standard setting institutions and benchmarking organizations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment     

Corporate motivations for environmental sustainable development: exploring the role of consumers in stakeholder engagement

This paper examines the extent to which the end‐consumer appears to influence corporate behaviour towards reporting specific environmental management activities, through examination of environmental disclosures by the UK FTSE 100 companies. The paper also explores whether proximity to the end‐consumer is associated with particular motivations for environmental management – whether cost‐reducing or reputational benefits, hypothesizing that close‐to‐consumer companies (C2C) will have a greater focus on reputational benefits than their counterparts. The results established that C2C companies were significantly more active in particular environmental measures (climate change and management processes) than their counterparts. They were also more likely to undertake environmental activities for which there was no explicit cost‐reduction benefit, suggesting that reputation with consumers/society may be a particular business motivator for them. These findings are important to policy makers, government and investors in terms of identifying which companies are leading particular aspects of the corporate environmental agenda and understanding the driving forces for it. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Enhancing Corporate Environmental Performance Through Reporting and Roadmaps

Managing the carbon footprint of companies and addressing their respective decarbonization plans is a challenging endeavour. The aim of this study is to help companies better understand the issues around decarbonization and environmental performance by suggesting a holistic management process on which they could embark. This process comprises two crucial steps, which are (a) sustainability reporting and (b) low‐carbon roadmaps. These steps are covered and further developed based on a detailed study of the UK food retail sector. This sector is relevant due to its economic and environmental importance, but most importantly it has a significant record of available environmental reports in the public domain and a large potential to influence consumers, policy makers and multiple supply chains. Sustainability reporting is assessed by analysing environmental KPIs disclosed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, and then these are compared against industry standards. This analysis highlights a general lack of consistency and transparency in CSR reporting of UK food retailers. Consequently, a low‐carbon roadmap based on relevant KPIs and on the ‘backcasting’ framework is presented as a case study in order to showcase how a hypothetical UK food retailer can employ a low‐carbon roadmap. The case study demonstrates that ambitious environmental targets are achievable if robust corporate action plans are followed. Furthermore, the case study indicates that capital might be misallocated in favour of highly visible environmental stores and on‐site energy generation technologies, whilst more could be done by applying energy efficiency measures that have the potential to deliver substantial carbon savings. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Tales in two countries: An insight into corporate environmental reporting in Denmark and the UK

The 1992 EC Fifth Action Plan, ‘Towards Sustainability’, expresses the Commission's commitment to ‘sustainable growth’. Detailed in the plan are requirements and areas of improvement which relate, predominantly, to environmental management. However, financial and environmental management conflict in important and fundamental areas. A failure of management practice and European policy to identify and address this conflict will not only prolong the ecological inefficiencies of industry but will isolate intent and action. This study examines this conflict with respect to training, operational time-horizons, opportunity costs, corporate governance and growth. The Annual Report is the authoritative statement of corporate performance, policy, objectives and culture. Although most reports do provide a broad if summary coverage of the main business activities, such reports are dominated by the needs of financial management. Extensive legislation and professional edicts dictate the contents of these financial reports. From the perspective of the Annual Report, it is a reasonable conclusion that financial performance is a part of whatever constitutes the core values of corporations. From this same perspective, it is also reasonable to infer that in many corporations environmental performance is not a part of corporate core values. This study compares and contrasts the Annual Reports of six environmentally significant companies in Denmark and the UK. The British environmental reports studied are thorough but separate from the Annual Report. On the other hand, the Danish firms incorporate all their environmental reporting within their Annual Reports. Which gives a better expression of a change in corporate core values?.     

Corporate environmental non‐reporting – a UK FTSE 350 perspective

Until relatively recently the majority of large publicly listed UK companies have not produced annual environmental reports. Of particular note is the slow take‐up of environmental reporting amongst the UK's top 350 companies, the FTSE 350. Using the results of a postal questionnaire, the reluctance of a majority of the FTSE 350 to voluntarily report is linked to 13 drawbacks. Results from non‐reporting respondents to the questionnaire allowed the relative importance of these drawbacks to be placed in a ranked order. Senior management doubt over the advantages of reporting was shown to be the most important drawback, closely followed by the effort required for data collection. A comparison in the uptake of corporate environmental management practices (other than reporting) was also made amongst reporters and non‐reporters. Reporters were shown to have a generally higher level of uptake, although company sector type and size was influential on environmental engagement overall. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Does designing environmental sustainability disclosure quality measures make a difference?

Assessing the quality of information disclosed by companies is a complex task. Accounting studies usually rely on analysing the content of corporate reports using measures to obtain a proxy for the information reported by companies. However, there is no consensus about the best design for these measures. The objective of the current paper is to investigate if there are significant differences in the results generated from seven alternative measures for assessing the quality of FTSE100 environmental sustainability reporting. Seven measures/indices have been used to assess disclosure quality. The three unidimensional measures include two “quantity measures” and one “scope measure” that measure the volume and width/coverage of information, respectively. Three compound measures are adopted from the literature, and the final measure is a multidimensional quality model, based on the results of a questionnaire ascertaining the perceptions of 86 preparers and 177 users of annual report (AR) and/stand‐alone corporate responsibility report (CRR). Although the results of the empirical analysis indicate that the measures are significantly correlated, the choice of a specific method can result in the very different ranking of companies. The evidence presented indicates that the choice of measure is of key importance.     

Determinants of Internet Financial Reporting by New Zealand Companies

The development of the Internet as a global medium for the dissemination of corporate financial information creates a new reporting environment. Extensive literature examines the determinants of voluntary financial reporting through traditional media such as print–based annual reports. This paper extends this literature by examining the voluntary adoption of the Internet as a medium for transmitting financial reports and determinants of such voluntary practice by New Zealand companies. The results indicate that some determinants of traditional financial reporting—firm size, liquidity, industrial sector and spread of shareholding—are determinants of voluntary adoption of Internet financial reporting (IFR). However, other firm characteristics, such as leverage, profitability and internationalization do not explain the choice to use the Internet as a medium for corporate financial reporting.     

Environmental reporting within the forest and paper industry

Research on environmental reporting within individual sectors and industries is limited. Generic studies have typically focused on the reporting practices of the world's largest corporates. Some industries and sectors are under‐represented within these studies, limiting the potential for industry‐ or sector‐specific analysis. Forest and paper is one industry frequently under‐represented. This study examines environmental reporting amongst the top 100 forest and paper companies. The scale of environmental report publication is investigated, and the breadth and depth of reporting on the key industry issues of forest management and fibre procurement examined. The results show reporting is more prevalent amongst larger corporates but marked regional variations are evident. Most noticeably, Scandinavian companies are reporting more extensively, both in terms of the number of levels at which they report and the depth of information included on forest management and fibre procurement. Reasons for the marked regional variations in reporting are considered and markets for forest products and preferences within those markets for specific certification schemes identified as potential influencing factors. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Social and environmental reporting and the corporate ego

This paper reports on the results of a qualitative exploration into the target audiences for social and environmental reporting (SER). In spite of the wealth of literature on SER motivations, relatively few studies have sought to ascertain who the key target or actual audiences are for SER. The results of this study, based on interviews with UK SER managers, suggest that investors and employees are overwhelmingly the most important audiences targeted by SER managers. The paper draws on auto‐communication theory to question the extent to which SER serves as a means of engaging in dialogue with stakeholders. It is argued that, beyond sending risk management signals to the financial markets, SER primarily serves as a vehicle whereby organizations can communicate with themselves. Moreover, broader stakeholders might be targeted with SER only insofar as doing so serves as a perceived endorsement of organizational communications, thereby embellishing the corporate ego's fantasy of how it would like to be perceived. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Defining Eco‐efficiency: A Case Study on the Finnish Forest Industry

Environmental reporting is a tool of corporate environmental management that can also be used as research material. The aim of this paper is to produce a comprehensive definition of eco‐efficiency based on the literature and then compare it with definitions identified in the environmental reports published by selected companies. In addition, this paper presents a conceptual framework of the relationship between environmental and economic performance in the companies. Three Finnish companies in the forest industry are selected as case companies. This analysis reviews environmental reports published by the companies from 1998 to 2007. In short, eco‐efficiency can be seen either as an indicator of environmental performance, or as a business strategy for sustainable development. The case companies very seldom give an exact definition of eco‐efficiency in their environmental reports. However, different aspects of eco‐efficiency are often referred to. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The impact of direct environmental,social, and governance reporting: Empirical evidence in European-listed companies in the agri-food sector

Companies are continuously pressured for the dissemination of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information, because of the constant debate on the issue of corporate sustainability, considered a critical and very important topic for society; despite this pressure, ESG's disclosure practices vary considerably from company to company, both in quantity and quality. The study aims to address the issue and verify the effectiveness of ESG reporting through the influence that the ESG disclosure has on profitability and value of listed European agri-food companies. The results obtained, studying a sample of 57 European-listed companies (EU28) in the agri-food sector observed in the period 2010–2018, show that the ESG disclosure practices of the companies impact corporate profitability; specifically, evidence is provided for the existence of a positive relationship between profitability and disclosure practices of strictly environmental and social information and a negative effect between company market value and disclosure practices relating to governance. These results suggest that greater transparency and accountability help to improve business profitability.     

Reporting on sustainability and HRM: a comparative study of sustainability reporting practices by the world's largest companies

As a response to the growing public awareness on the importance of organisational contributions to sustainable development, there is an increased incentive for corporations to report on their sustainability activities. In parallel with this has been the development of ‘Sustainable HRM’ which embraces a growing body of practitioner and academic literature connecting the notions of corporate sustainability to HRM. The aim of this article is to analyse corporate sustainability reporting amongst the world's largest companies and to assess the HRM aspects of sustainability within these reports in comparison to environmental aspects of sustainable management and whether organisational attributes – principally country-of-origin – influences the reporting of such practices. A focus in this article is the extent to which the reporting of various aspects of sustainability may reflect dominant models of corporate governance in the country in which a company is headquartered. The findings suggest, first and against expectations, that the overall disclosure on HRM-related performance is not lower than that on environmental performance. Second, companies report more on their internal workforce compared to their external workforce. Finally, international differences, in particular those between companies headquartered in liberal market economies and coordinated market economies, are not as apparent as expected.     

The impact of voluntary environmental protection instruments on company environmental performance

In the last decade there has been increasing emphasis on the use of voluntary environmental protection tools such as corporate environmental reporting (CER) and environmental management systems (EMSs). There has been relatively little research, however, on the impact of these tools on the actual environmental performance of companies. This paper presents the findings of a survey of 40 companies operating in Western Australia to determine the extent to which the implementation of two voluntary instruments has influenced company environmental performance. The research considered four questions: To what extent have CER and EMSs influenced the environmental performance of companies operating in Western Australia? What are the characteristics of these influences? How does the influence of EMSs on environmental performance compare to that of CER? Have other external factors concurrently influenced environmental performance? In general, most respondents indicated that EMSs had influenced environmental management practices to some extent. On the other hand, CER was seen more as a public relations exercise and had less impact on company practices compared with EMSs. Other factors that influenced environmental performance included pressure from clients, senior management, the public and regulators; corporate culture; and cost savings. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Immediate trends in Internet reporting

The Internet is increasingly used by companies to disseminate financial information. However, the extent to which the use of this new medium will change corporate reporting practice has received surprisingly little debate in the published literature. To widen the participation in the debate, this paper posits that the future of Internet-based financial reporting is contingent on technological and non-technological factors. This proposition is evaluated using the opinions of the immediate trends in online reporting obtained from seventeen UK experts in accounting and/or the Internet who responded to an open-ended questionnaire. These experts were drawn from academics, auditors, regulators, reporting companies and users of corporate reports. While the experts concur on some issues, they provide a range of different views in other areas. Some views are technology-driven, whereas others pay more attention to non-technological factors such as resistance to technological change, users' reluctance to read financial reports and the slow reaction of regulators. Some experts foresee minimum changes in financial reporting over the short term, while others adopt a more progressive or even radical perspective. This paper has synthesized these views into nine major categories which provide information on the role of the Internet in financial reporting. The results have important implications for all parties involved in financial reporting and also indicate avenues for further research.     

Engaging Hong Kong businesses in environmental change: drivers and barriers

Hong Kong's businesses have been slow to embrace environmental management principles, particularly in the SME sector. This article analyses key barriers and incentives to engaging Hong Kong businesses with voluntary environmental initiatives and compares their relevance for companies of different sizes. As in other countries, SMEs show a much lower uptake of such activities than larger companies. Their approach towards environmental management is predominantly reactive, and legislation remains the key driver for engaging them with environmental change. Inadequate government policy and support, societal attitudes and corporate culture all contribute significantly to the comparatively poor development of corporate environmental management among Hong Kong companies. As long as most SMEs regard voluntary environmental activities as costly and unnecessary ‘extras’ that endanger their competitiveness and detract resources from their core business without offering any tangible benefits, fundamental improvements in their environmental performance will be difficult to achieve. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Environmental business strategy: the Portuguese case

This study focuses on the adoption of environmental management systems and corporate social responsibility reporting as mechanisms for creating a differential advantage, looking at how different stakeholders in an organization perceive the importance of instituting these mechanisms as determinants of market success. The paper then aims to focus on environmental business strategy and corporate social responsibility reporting in companies, rather than prescribing policy for the entire sector. In so doing it postulates that compliance with market requirements on environmentally related issues, by instituting proper environmental management mechanisms and corporate social responsibility reporting, is a pre‐requisite for acceptance of the firm and its products in the market. The paper is methodologically based on a set of 60 interviews conducted with various agents in the Portuguese textile industry, ranging from policy‐makers to industrialists and NGOs, with a view to determining differences in perception between the various stakeholders. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Board structures,liberal countries,and developed market economies. Do they matter in environmental reporting? An international outlook

Previous empirical evidence has shown the effect of most corporate governance mechanisms on corporate social responsibility and environmental disclosure. However, there is scant empirical evidence that examines the influence of liberal countries, developed market economies, and board structures on environmental disclosure. Thus, this research aims to explore how liberal and developed countries and board structures affect environmental reporting. We hypothesise a linear and positive association between companies located in countries with liberal and developed market economies and environmental reporting. Moreover, we hypothesise that one‐tier board structures negatively affect environmental disclosure. Focusing on 13,100 companies domiciled in 39 different countries from 2005 to 2015, it is established that those companies located in liberal and developed economies are more likely to disclose environmental information, whereas one‐tier boards have a negative effect.     

A Comparitive Study of the Use of Financial Graphs in the Corporate Annual Reports of Major U.S. and U.K. Companies

The use of graphs to disclose information in corporate annual reports represents a significant dimension in financial disclosure management. Surprisingly, no inter-country comparative analysis of this area of voluntary disclosure has been conducted. This study compares the graphical reporting practices in the 1990 annual reports of 176 leading U.S. and U.K. industrial companies. Ninety-two per cent of U.S. companies use graphs compared with 80% of U.K. companies; the mean number of graphs per company being 13.0 and 7.7, respectively. Sales, an earnings measure, earnings per share and dividends per share are the four most frequently graphed aggregate financial performance variables in both countries. Significant differences in several of the variables graphed are found and explained in terms of environmental factors. In both countries, evidence of graphical information manipulation exists in the form of selectivity, measurement distortion, and presentational enhancement. Moderate evidence supports the hypothesis that U.K. companies are more likely than U.S. companies to adopt interpretative shading. Regulators need to clarify the responsibilities of directors and auditors by setting graphical guidelines.