The content and disclosure of Australian corporate environmental policies

Studies of environmental disclosure levels in companies’ annual reports have shown an increasing interest in the environment. A major part of this interest has become the development of a corporate environmental policy (CEP). This study considers the relationship between CEPs of Australian public companies and subsequent reporting and disclosure related to that policy found in their annual reports. The results show that Australian companies are surprisingly behind other countries in environmental reporting trends, and there are some major differences between the content of their environmental policies and their disclosures. Of particular importance is the finding that while companies appear to be reporting on the environment internally, they place a low priority on providing environmental performance data to external parties.

[1]  C. Tilt.  ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES OF MAJOR COMPANIES: AUSTRALIAN EVIDENCE , 1997 .

[2]  R. Gray,et al.  Corporate social and environmental reporting , 1995 .

[3]  R. Adler,et al.  Exploring the reliability of social and environmental disclosures content analysis , 1999 .

[4]  O. Holsti.  Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities , 1969 .

[5]  P. Shimell.  Corporate environmental policy in practice , 1991 .

[6]  Ken T. Trotman,et al.  Associations between social responsibility disclosure and characteristics of companies , 1981 .

[7]  Lee D. Parker,et al.  The impact of corporate characteristics on social responsibility disclosure: A typology and frequency-based analysis , 1987 .

[8]  Ian Satchwell.  Australian Minerals Industry Code for Environmental Management , 1997 .

[9]  R. Estes,et al.  Corporate Social Accounting , 1976 .

[10]  M. Polonsky,et al.  Corporate environmental commitment in Australia: A sectorial comparison , 1992 .

[11]  R. Gray,et al.  Corporate accountability and the physical environment: Social responsibility and accounting beyond profit , 1993 .

[12]  Joseph R. Dominick,et al.  Mass Media Research: An Introduction , 1983 .

[13]  R. Gray,et al.  The Greening of Enterprise: An Exploration of the (NON) Role of Environmental Accounting and Environmental Accountants in Organizational Change , 1995 .

[14]  Corporate social accounting in Australasia , 1985 .

[15]  L. Parker,et al.  Corporate Social Reporting: A Rebuttal of Legitimacy Theory , 1989 .

[16]  R. Gray,et al.  Green Accounting: Cosmetic Irrelevance or Radical Agenda for Change? , 1997 .

[17]  J. Wiseman,et al.  An evaluation of environmental disclosures made in corporate annual reports , 1982 .

[18]  A. Belkaoui.  The impact of socio-economic accounting statements on the investment decision: An empirical study , 1980 .

[19]  R. Gray,et al.  Constructing a research database of social and environmental reporting by UK companies , 1995 .

[20]  R. Gray,et al.  Accounting for the environment : the greening of accountancy, part II , 1993 .

[21]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology , 1980 .

[22]  James Guthrie,et al.  Corporate social disclosure practice: a comparative international analysis , 1990 .

[23]  R. Lindsay.  Lies, Damned Lies and More Statistics: The Neglected Issue of Multiplicity in Accounting Research , 1997 .

[24]  R. Weber.  Basic Content Analysis , 1986 .

[25]  C. Inclan,et al.  Corporate environmental disclosures: Competitive disclosure hypothesis using 1991 annual report data , 1996 .

[26]  T. Tinker,et al.  Falling down the Hole in the Middle of the Road: Political Quietism in Corporate Social Reporting , 1991 .

[27]  John Elkington.  Company Environmental Reporting: A Measure of the Progress of Business & Industry Towards Sustainable Development , 1994 .

[28]  Jan Bebbington,et al.  Accounting for the Environment , 1993 .

[29]  T. F. Carney,et al.  Content Analysis: A Technique for Systematic Inference from Communications , 1972 .

[30]  R. Gray,et al.  Accounting and accountability : changes and challenges in corporate social and environmental reporting , 2003 .

[31]  C. Tilt,et al.  Environmental disclosure by Australian mining companies: environmental conscience or commercial reality? , 1999 .

[32]  R. Monsen,et al.  On the Measurement of Corporate Social Responsibility: Self-Reported Disclosures as a Method of Measuring Corporate Social Involvement , 1979 .

[33]  R. David.  The greening of business , 1991 .

[34]  R. Gray,et al.  Corporate Social Reporting: Emerging Trends in Accountability and the Social Contract , 1988 .

[35]  A. B. Antal,et al.  The usefulness and use of social reporting information , 1985 .

[36]  Frances Cairncross,et al.  Costing the Earth , 1991 .

[37]  C. Tilt.  The Influence of External Pressure Groups on Corporate SocialDisclosure: Some Empirical Evidence , 1994 .

[38]  Sadrudin A. Ahmed,et al.  Comparison of Social Responsibility Information Disclosure Media Used by Canadian Firms , 1990 .

[39]  G. Lehman.  A Legitimate Concern for Environmental Accounting , 1995 .

[40]  C. Deegan,et al.  A Study of the Environmental Disclosure Practices of Australian Corporations , 1996 .

[41]  J. Bebbington.  Engagement, education and sustainability , 1997 .

[42]  Mikael Niskala,et al.  Environmental reporting in Finland: A note on the use of annual reports☆ , 1995 .

[43]  M. Milne,et al.  Some determinants of social and environmental disclosures in New Zealand companies , 1996 .

[44]  D. Owen.  Accounting and Accountability , 1995 .

[45]  R. Gray,et al.  Corporate social reporting : accounting and accountability , 1987 .