Corporate Environmental Reporting: An Emerging Issue in the Corporate World

Abstract

Corporate environmental reporting becomes a crucial issue in today's corporate reporting. The present status and future focus gives every indication that it is going to capture a permanent position in the bundle of general-purpose financial statement. Because, the corporate reporting is for the stakeholders and every stakeholders show a keen interest on such disclosure. Protecting the environment is the social responsibility and commitment of corporations towards the society. It is believed that corporation is responsible for the environmental crisis and so they should pay for this (cost-benefit trade off). However, reporting is mostly guided by standards, guidelines etc. And, we do not have any standards designed for such disclosure. So, such reporting is still voluntary that has no specific format and style. Voluntary disclosure often leads to non-disclosure and mandatory disclosure leads to minimal disclosure. Thus, environmental disclosure should have both type of orientation, as it is a question of life and sustainability. The paper gives a conceptual discussion on corporate environmental reporting and guidelines. It also gives a literature review of current reporting practices to highlights the developments till date. And, this concludes that the level, extent and style of disclosure are not satisfactory at all in any respect. The professionals and respective regulatory authorities should come forward with stricter standards and guidelines to this issue that is the demand of time.

Corporate diversity and corporate social environmental disclosure of listed manufacturing companies in Nigeria

“…However, the success of this reporting also led to global concern on how to harmonize accounting and environmental reporting costs and liabilities (Pramanik, Shil, & Das, 2008). Notwithstanding the challenges of harmonizing accounting and environmental reporting costs, Thomas and Hunger (2008) as cited in Tareq, Reza, and Hassan (2017) opined that corporations should strive to be socially responsible, because building a good image is key to the survival of a business, and when this is done, it transcends to a long-lasting relationship with diverse stakeholders, which is ideal for a perpetual and sustainable business environment.…”

Corporate Environmental Disclosure in India: An Analysis of Multinational and Domestic Agrochemical Corporations

“…The Government of India made its first public statement concerning the need for environmental disclosure in companies' annual reports in 1991 [79]. However, until 2011, all environmental disclosures from corporations operating in India were voluntary for all companies, with the exception of submitting a statement to the Pollution Control Board [80].…”

Must Firms Adopt Environmental Accounting? Adoption Challenges in Nigeria

“…This makes obstacles in the total integration of environmental accounting within the framework of existing GAAP. However, it is possible to disclose internal cost and benefit of environmental measures that is undertaken by a business unit and its material effects in reported profit by disclosing the way of recognition (Pramanik et al, 2008). In case of externalities, like level emission, waste generation, afforestation etc.…”

“…According to Sajad et al (2013), environmental accounting is a term used to refer to the addition of environmental cost information into existing cost accounting procedures and/or recognizing embedded environmental costs and allocating them to appropriate products or processes. Thus, environmental accounting is a way of incorporating environmental data into the accounting or reporting process of companies (Banerjee, 2006;Chatterjee, Mir, 2008;Pramanik et al, 2008). In spite of the role played by environmental accounting in the reporting process, the adoption remains problematic to most corporate organizations in Nigeria and the world over.…”