An Assessment of Sustainability Disclosures in Oil and Gas Listed Companies in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper assesses the level of corporate sustainability disclosures in an environmentally-sensitive industry in Nigeria -the oil and gas industry. The paper aims to evaluate the extent of sustainability disclosure in the annual report's oil and gas industries. The study retrieves secondary data on sustainability disclosure for 10 years (2010 -2019) from eight oil and gas industries listed in the Nigerian stock exchange through a desktop approach and content analysis methodology. Content analysis of the sustainability disclosure is to identify items of sustainability disclosed in the annual reports. The paper assesses the extent of disclosure by adopting the global reporting initiative's scoring index. Findings from the analysis indicate a very lowlevel climate change and environmental pollution disclosure. Only 13.8% of the companies disclosed their impact on climate change and environmental pollution. On the contrary, all the companies revealed their community investment, which this paper regards as legitimizing smokescreen ecological pollution. The paper contributes to the literature by connecting the legitimacy theory to the decoying sustainability disclosure of oil and gas companies in Nigeria. In conclusion, the study recommends more stringent sustainability disclosure policies for the oil and gas to provide more information for environmental and climate change advocates and investors in censuring the companies, which might instill improved environmental compliance.

The Role of Environmental Policy in Influencing Governance and Sustainability Practices Among Nigerian Quoted Companies: A Proposed Framework

“…In other words, social and environmental reports are pointless if they cannot be independently verified (Nwobu, 2017;Saleh et al, 2010a). Consistent with the LT, empirically, Nwobu et al (2021) established that oil and gas companies fully disclosed their community investment by legitimizing smokescreen ecological pollution on their annual reports.…”

Bridging Stakeholders’ Expectations Gap: The Role of Sustainability Reporting of Listed Firms in Nigeria

“…Meanwhile, Michelon et al, (2021) and Diouf and Boiral (2017), observed that sustainability reporting in most developing countries is a mere management tool to impress the stakeholders, leading to low quality sustainability report incapable of presenting the accurate sustainability performance of a company's to report users. Similarly, Anwar and Malik (2020) (Ogbodo 2015;Onyali et al, (2015), drivers of sustainability reporting (Ikpor et al, 2022), extent of sustainability disclosures (Nwobu et al, (2021), influence of country governance factors and national culture on corporate sustainability practice (Ogundajo et al, 2022), and role of integrated accounting postulate on bridging stakeholders financial reporting expectation gap (Joshua et al, 2021). Evidently, there is lack of empirical evidence to determine the role of sustainability reporting practices in bridging stakeholder expectation gaps.…”

“…Studies on sustainability reporting in Nigeria have focused on such issues such as; determining the nexus between sustainability practices and competitive advantage of listed manufacturing companies in Nigeria , the nexus between sustainability reporting and firms value (Nwaigwe et al, 2021), factors affecting environmental disclosure practices of companies (Oyadonghan & Eze, 2013), effect of stakeholders' expectations on environmental accounting practices (Olaleye & Igbekoyi 2020), effectiveness of triple bottom line accounting disclosure practices (Ogbodo 2015;Onyali et al, (2015), drivers of sustainability reporting (Ikpor et al, 2022). Other studies include extent of sustainability disclosures in oil and gas listed companies in Nigeria (Nwobu et al, (2021), and role of integrated accounting postulate on bridging stakeholders financial reporting expectation gap (Joshua et al, 2021). The need for a comprehensive examination of whether sustainability reports can be used in bridging stakeholders expectation gaps in Nigeria has not been answered until now.…”

Perceived usefulness of technology and multiple salient outcomes: the improbable case of oil and gas workers

“…Performance management is a critical component of organizational and technical efficiency ( Nwobu et al., 2021 ). Businesses must find elements that boost employees’ performance to get the most out of them.…”