Environmental Disclosure Research: Review and Synthesis

Abstract

Global warning, the potential of ecological accidents, as well as the hysteria surrounding events such as Mad Cow disease, underlie society's awareness and concern about the quality of the environment, especially corporations' role and responsibility in that regard. One can define corporate environmental disclosure as the set of information items that relate to a firm's past, current and future environmental management activities and performances. Corporate environmental disclosure also comprises information about the past, current and future financial implications resulting from a firm's environmental management decisions or actions. This article examines the conceptual framework used to analyze literature related to environmental disclosure. It surveys the literature on voluntary environmental disclosure. This article also reviews the empirical research on external environmental information, and one section summarizes the literature on mandatory disclosure. Finally, the article provides a discussion of the results and their potential implications.