The Quality and History of Environmental Reporting - Coursework Example

?Order 522707 Topic: A literature review on Environmental Reporting Introduction Environmental reporting can be defined as a catch-all term that describes the various means by which companies disclose information on their environmental activities. The term corporate environmental reports differs considerably with Environmental reporting. Corporate environmental reports are types of environmental reporting and can be defined as a voluntary stand-alone reports issued by business organizations about their environmental activities. Gray (2000) considers them as a kind of small world where various important points in the relationship between a firm and its owners meet together. Basically, there are three types of environmental reporting that include involuntary disclosures, mandatory disclosure and voluntary disclosure (Porritt, 2005). Involuntary disclosure is whereby a company’s information about its environmental activities is disclosed without its consent and against its will. A good example of these kinds of disclosures is press and media exposes. Mandatory disclosure is whereby companies are required by law to disclose information concerning their environmental activities. Finally, voluntary disclosure is whereby a company voluntarily avails information concerning its environmental activities to the general public (Gray, 2000). There are two forms of voluntary disclosures including confidential and non-confidential disclosures. The former are the disclosures which are required by consumers, banks and insurers that are not available to the general public while the latter comprise of all environmental information a business organization voluntarily avails to the general public. History of environmental reporting Even though voluntary disclosure of environment information by businesses has possibly existed as long as there have been companies, it is only in the last two decades we have seen significance in this direction. As more and more businesses become producers of informative environmental reports, so have the development embodied in the reporting continued to uphold an understanding of the relationships between the company, society and the environment (Gray, 2000). For almost 20 years of such voluntary initiatives have demonstrated clearly the possibilities of voluntary disclosure and appropriately attracted substantial admiration for those within the corporations who have initiated this progress (Patten, 2002). Organizational innovation has grown around the development of reporting and the effect of, for instance the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines among other approaches which ensured a helpful and inventive environment within which both emerging and existing environmental reporters can grow and develop (Porritt, 2005). Porritt (2005) observes that the substantial growth in this direction is not the whole story. This is because studies have not provided credible explanations of why companies would perform voluntarily such dangerous duty as environmental reporting (Porritt, 2005). More challenging than this, perhaps, is the rising recognition that if individuals know little about why companies report, they practically know comparatively little about why companies do report whereas majority do not. Probably that is why only few companies report either entirely or reliably. Stand-Alone Environmental Reporting Traditionally, much of formal environmental reporting and research is based on organization’s yearly report. Although disclosing some aspects of the organization’s environmental activities might appear in marketing, correspondences to workers and so on the diversity and evenness of this reporting has only rarely attracted interest in the literature (Thompson and Bebbington, 2003). Even though the birth of stand-alone reporting is of importance in itself, the studies have not treated this shift as one that is basically different in form of yearly report disclosures. Stand-alone reporting can be regarded as an extension of the social and environmental reporting function, but an aspect bring with it fresh symbolic significance. It should be understood that the role of stand-alone reporting is sparser for a number of reasons. For one, stand-alone reporting is at its infancy and hence it has not been researched adequately. Moreover, yearly report disclosures provide the benefit of allowing historical analysis over a long duration. At the moment, majority of companies do not produce stand-alone reports and so assessment across companies is not possible. But as stand- alone reporting progresses, there is a possibility that the social and environmental reporting literature with time will focus on this idea as the paramount type of reporting (Solomon and Lewis, 2002). The Quality of Environmental Reporting (ER) More recently, there has been a gradual progress in broader accountability. In the last two decades the number of businesses that have taken up the role of environmental reporting has increased significantly. The evidence that environmental reports are produced at all and more so by various companies is a success. A closer look at these processes alongside the increasing standardization and professionalisation of the area, as demonstrated by the growth and propagation of standards like AA1000 and the dynamic Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), international progress in environmental reporting is irrefutable (Miles et al, 2002). In fact, a number of scholars have observed that in the transparency revolution, there has been rapid increase in levels of reporting and quality of the reports (Solomon and Lewis, 2002). In the last decade since SustainAbility and UNEP initiated the first global benchmark survey of non-financial reporting, there has been substantial increase of companies who has taken up reporting their environmental performance and that generally the quality of reporting has improved greatly. The number of issues addressed in these reports has also widened significantly. Yet, may be this increasing progress in environmental reporting is the beginning to temper as noted by Gray and Bebbington (2001). They further note that the number of organizations taking up environmental reporting should be revealed. Cormier and Gordon (2000) observe that most of international corporations do not produce an environmental report of any description. Whereas environmental reporting remains a minor activity with respect to organizations reporting globally, the quality of the reporting that is carried out has been questioned. For instance, Porritt (2005) observes that the basis of environmental reporting should be on eco-balance calculation or an endeavor at measurement of an ecological footprint. Provided that mankind’s collective ecological footprint is always growing, such environmental information is essential in understanding the extent to which organizations contribute to this end and more significantly, where they can be involved in its amelioration. Corporate claims of environmental duty are not reliable if they are not reinforced by information that illustrates their general environmental impacts. According to Patten (2002), environmental reporting continue to demonstrate a concern with eco-effectiveness rather than the more challenging issue of entire environmental impact. Like social reporting, environmental reporting fails to have a framework that outlines the corporations’ main environmental impacts and also fails to state whoever is liable. There is a possibility that much environmental reporting picks only the good news. Solomon and Lewis (2002) for instance observe that there is a thick line between reporting and performance in many countries, with environmental reporting often overlooking the more contentious and negative issues which are exposed up by the media. Other studies point out that environmental reporting presents a relatively selective and modified image of environmental performance (Patten, 2002). Wilmhurst and Frost (2000) claim that even where organizations pick up on matters which have caused public controversy; they tremendously do so in a self-sycophantic manner. Thus, organizations substantially skew their environmental reporting in a positive direction. Further, despite the fact that many organizations are embracing Triple Bottom Line reporting strategy in some style or issuing what is supposedly sustainability reports, only a small fraction of them tackle the primary sustainability issues or attempt to picture what a sustainable organization would be like as noted by Gray (2000). According to Porritt (2005), Triple Bottom Line reporting is an idea that applies to the individual company ascertaining for its current and direct social environmental and economic effects. There is a basic difference between this and sustainability reporting since sustainability applies to the structure within which the company functions. A sustainability report thus needs to put into consideration the impact of organization’s activities within the perspective of the whole system. Gray (2000) explains that for corporations to produce a sustainability report, they have to see beyond the corporations’ walls and also examine the environmental effects of the companies with which they contract. It is through this that a distinction between corporate social responsibility and sustainability can be drawn. While the former can be defined as a company that actively enhances its social and environmental effects at the organizational level, the latter can be defined as the same company’s effect on the whole system (Gray, 2000). In this perspective, it is simple to visualize an apparently responsible company as one that for instance utilizes entirely renewable energy, reuses much of its waste as the best conducive environment to work and manufactures goods that are greatly beneficial to the society. Yet, if that company concurrently contracts with numerous organizations that are not so responsible, then its overall effect on the whole system may still be adverse. According to Cormier and Gordon (2000), sustainability needs systems thinking, a phase very few organization ever consider to put into account (Miles et al, 2002). Like how the quality of environmental reporting in general has been doubted, the use of the word sustainability to sustainability reporting equally raises serious doubts. Even organizational developments like the GRI have possibly been limited or barring environmental reporting from attaining a significant level of quality. Gray (2000) for example, observes that the entire ‘warts and all’ strategy to reporting that has been used by large number of companies since the propagation of standards like the GRI is merely a distraction and may be employed as an instrument to detract attention from more grave issues. In many situations, negative is relatively selective or reveals very little. In many instances, the bad news disclosure is selective or reflects information that is already known by the general public rather providing an accurate coverage (Miles et al, 2002). There is therefore a conflict between what seems to be reporting growth on one side and those doubting the quality of reporting on the other side. With a large number of organizations reporting the widened range of matters that are being reported, and the improvement on SER standards like the GRI and AA1000, environmental reporting can start to be perceived in more sound and normalized terms (Miles et al, 2002). If these advancement may result in reports that permit appraisal of company’s environmental performance or impact on its sustainability is questionable. Motivations in Environmental Reporting In majority of countries, environmental reporting is mainly voluntary. Given this, why do companies carry out the hard task of gathering and conveying information concerning their environmental performance is surely of interest. More recent studies on the connection between environmental reporting disclosure and corporate attributes have shed light into why business organizations do so. Studies reveal that environmental reporting is more widespread among big organizations and corporations from higher profile economic sectors. Environmental reporting is usually perceived as an ideology of the rich countries. Deegan (2002) observes that N. America and Western are the key active reporting territories. Even though we have witnessed recent progress in Asia, environmental reporting is still mainly concentrated in Australia and Japan (Deegan, 2002).The Caribbean and Latin America demonstrate no considerable signs of environmental reporting and in Africa and the Middle East, it is the more developed South Africa that demonstrates remarkable degree of environmental reporting activity (Miles et al, 2002). Recent studies have offered to demonstrate the foundation for the sound theoretical views in environmental reporting. The theories involved in this matter include stakeholder, legitimacy and political economy theories. The above theories depict in numerous ways how environmental reporting will arise in reaction to challenges on organizations to be accountable. With respect to these theories, environmental reporting is seen as a device of placate powerful stakeholders and as such maintaining the reliability of the organization along with the broader legitimacy of the market system within which the reporting business functions (Miles et al, 2002). These theoretical interpretations have mainly been derived from quantitative research into environmental reporting. These researches have been a success in developing wider relationships between environmental reporting and other parameters like industry variables, size and country and yet, the interpretations of environmental reporting are relatively simplistic (Deegan, 2002). Qualitative studies have shed light into environmental reporting motivations. They observe that motivations to disclose information are relatively more intricate than just to attain institutional legitimacy or to control stakeholder relationships. An important feature of these qualitative studies is that they focus on eliciting directly the perspectives and ideas of those engaged in generating environmental reports for companies, generally carried out through structured interviews and case studies. More recent studies in this area observe that shifting environmental disclosure practices is a complicated process and vary across firms (Miles et al, 2002). Some pointed out that those motivations were related to investor pressure while others observed that the primary motivation related to an individual inside the organization who championed the process (Gray, 2000) and (Miles et al, 2002). Gray (2000) further observes that the role of individual supporters to be crucial in starting environmental reporting. He examines the degree to which environmental reporting is implicated in corporate greening, noting that the transformations derived from environmental reporting have been basically synthetic. Studies on the same subject by other researchers concur with those of Gray (Miles et al, 2002). The findings reveal that the basic organizational greening does occur as a consequence of environmental reporting. The core values of businesses appear not to change by environmental reporting (Miles et al, 2002). Some further note that the environmental report is used simply as change resistance strategy to avoid more drastic approaches to organizational greening (Miles et al, 2002). All these qualitative studies question whether businesses change considerably when they respond to the environmental issue or whether they transform the environmental issue and as such resist change. The findings of theses studies reveal that both are going on at the same time, meaning that motivations underlying environmental reporting are both numerous and intricate. There are a number of factors that are shown to encourage businesses to carry out environmental reporting. These factors include peer pressure and benchmarking activities and stakeholder pressure. Other factors include government pressure and public pressure (Deegan, 2002). While the initial plan to report is understood by environmental reporting managers as a response to pressure, Solomon and Lewis (2002) observe that once a business has begun reporting, various perceived gains arise. They are thought to benefit from improved external reputation and recognition through awards or ranking exercises (Deegan, 2002). Reporting companies are also thought to enjoy enhanced employees morale. This implies that there is a mixture of proactive and reactive grounds for continuing to report (Deegan, 2002). Internal contextual factors also play a vital role in influencing reporting. These contextual factors relate both to the attitudes of company employees and to the company’s internal processes and management structures. For instance, in addition to senior management attitudes towards reporting and responsibility, Miles et al (2002) observe that the method in which businesses organize their reporting process has a significant impact on the outcomes of the report. This involves a number of reasons that may elucidate the diversity in environmental reporting practice and are somewhat independent of the real motivations that allegedly underlie environmental reporting (Solomon and Lewis, 2002). Research thus point out that environmental motivations are various, intricate and need evaluation in order to untie them. They are also conflicting as illustrated by Patten (2002) who notes that some managers hold generally two types of motivations for CSR. One is enlightened self interest where CSR is seen as a controllable activity that is similar to traditional business goals. The other is rights or responsibilities whereby there is a sense of duty for aspects of external nature to the business. Further probing suggests that in case of disagreement between financial and environmental factors, the former overrides the latter (Miles et al, 2002). Similarly, Gray (2000) notes the dual rationale where he observes that individual managerial opinions of what sustainability entails for organization disagree with the formal organizational understanding. These studies note that CSR functions are seen as moral responsibility when actually the truth is near to enlightened self-interest (Gray, 2000). The findings from these studies conflict with the concept that doing business-as-usual is in conformity with satisfying society. Such conflict is completely lacking in the organizational literature on environmental reporting and CSR. It is reported that accountability has been trying hard to convince business organizations that there are advantages in corporate social responsibility and environmental reporting over time. In the last two decades, studies have been pointing out the numerous financial gains that could be attained as a result of environmental reporting. Findings from these studies explain less tangible, yet advantageous effects on organization’s performance that emanates from involvement with and being accountable to communities (Porritt, 2005). Some institutions have also noted the organization benefits that can be reaped through the adoption of such approaches as environmental management systems and SCR reporting in an effort to encourage organization to pursue CSR. A number of schools of thoughts are engaged in CSR and are actively promoting the organizational case for environmental reporting and CSR. For instance, some institutions have formulated approaches that allow businesses to target their community investment in a manner that enhances the business benefits that arise as a consequence (Porritt, 2005). Studies on environmental reporting utilize the language of risk management and stress the increasing discrimination of investors over environmental reporting. This is in essence indicating an increasing focus on business initiatives to report rather than on moral responsibilities. Deegan (2002) also maintains that nearly CSR approaches are not fully included in the organization’s core strategy and that organizations are not getting advantages that they could receive as a result. The business literature thus mirrors a business case focus whereby efforts are increasingly made to arrest the CSR attention of organization with financial carrots (Deegan, 2002). This can be confused with the academic work. The hypotheses of environmental reporting have been designed to mirror a concern that environmental reporting serves a socio-political duty as an arbitrator between businesses and stakeholders. From the above, there is a general suggestion that a more complex and conflicting set of motivations underlie environmental reporting. Examining these various literatures unearths numerous reasons as to what motivates environmental reporting. Some reporting motivations were shown to be complementary while mutually exclusive. From the literature, it appears that there is a value in investigating the reporting motivations of businesses. This is in order to ascertain whether the business case rationales outlined in business literature conflicts the socio-political literature of environmental reporting (Miles et al, 2002). Benefits of environmental reporting Environmental reporting is beneficial to several stakeholders in various ways. For one, it reinforces the information needed by public to hold companies accountable for their deeds. It also boosts the influence of the public participation in the process of corporate goal setting. Environmental reporting allows the investor to gain the power of the capital market to uphold and ensure environmentally-superior business practices (Porritt, 2005). The other significance of environmental reporting is that it allows corporations and their stakeholders to monitor corporations conformity to norms set forth in their proclamation of environmental principle and their various objectives. Environmental reporting can as well be used to identify environmental risks. This is very important to businesses as it avoids the damage to the standing as a result of negative publicity on an environmental issue (Patten, 2002). There are numerous gains that can be reaped from environmental reporting but basically these benefits can be grouped into two categories namely financial and strategic. Financial benefit that can be derived from environmental reporting is that it can help corporations to raise share price in the capital markets. According to Solomon and Lewis (2002), a corporation can show good environmental performance and a satisfactory degree of environmental liability to its stakeholders. This can help increase its share price in the stock exchange as stressed by Solomon and Lewis (2002). Strategic benefits that can be accrued from environmental reporting include improving its image and building better relations with its relevant customers among others. Belal (2000) observes that environmental reporting is like financial reporting in that it compels a high degree of organizational transparency. He further states that company directors usually use environmental reporting as a means to assess environmental performance and set targets and plans for more improvements. Different stakeholders use environmental reports to evaluate the performance of business organizations. Environmental reports can also shed light into how sound a firm is managing its activities to minimize risks, prevent potential liabilities, conform to public and other stakeholder expectations as well as create innovative solutions to problems (Miles et al, 2002). Environmental reporting does not only provide insight into the environmental performance of a company but it also provides information on the overall environmental management principles used by the organization. Although it is in its infancy, environmental reporting is rapidly becoming common. Currently, it is being used by a number of sectors such as private organizations, educational institutions and local authorities among others. Application of Environmental Reporting In many organizations, environmental reporting is being used by organizations in all sectors of the economy to inform the stakeholders about their environmental initiatives and performance. In the current business world, different stakeholders are asking organizations for more detailed information concerning their environmental performance (Thompson and Bebbington, 2003). Meeting the demands of stakeholders is promoting the implementation of environmental reporting by businesses. Although environmental reporting is a new concept in the world of accounting, it has become standard practice in a number of big business organizations and it is now being included in the overall sustainability report alongside financial and social information. Governments encourage the utilization of environmental reporting by organizations as an instrument of enhancing transparency and responsible organizational behaviors as espoused by Belal (2000). Government institutions and units prepare environmental reports as tools for communicating to the general public of their activities and how environmental aspects are taken into consideration in the decision making process (Deegan, 2002). As an element of its sustainable development approach, governments are persuading both private and public companies to disclose their environmental performance information through their yearly reports and accounts. Financial institutions and insurers are getting interested in risks and liabilities as a result of environmental activities and are using environmental reports to ascertain organization’s environmental performance and management (Belal, 2000). Companies that demonstrate they are acting to reduce environmental and social risks and future liabilities can benefit from improved credit ratings and lower premiums. Organizations that illustrate they are working to minimize environmental and social risks and future liabilities can gain from advanced credit ratings as well as lower premiums as observed by Solomon and Lewis (2002). Mutual funds that use environmental screens also use environmental reports to assess organization for inclusion in their funds. They also use them to compare organization’s performance against others in the same industry (Miles et al, 2002). Challenges in Environmental Reporting Currently, the significant challenges faced in environmental reporting can be summed up in three words namely continuity, comparability and credibility duped as the 3cs (Thompson and Bebbington, 2003). The problems associated with continuity can be enhanced by publishing environmental reports periodically, by setting goals and giving feedback on progress as well as by applying the similar performance meters over time. Similarly, the problems with comparability can be solved by applying standard environmental performance meters. Miles et al (2002) agrees that mandatory disclosure in the Annual and financial reports can significantly enhance comparability. The problems with Credibility can be solved through openness and balanced tone in the environmental report. Involving stakeholders in dialogue is an essential element of the process. Moreover, authentication of environmental reports will only increase credibility when the level of the authentication statement is lucid and the integrity of the verifier is more than the credibility of the organization itself (Miles et al, 2002). The overall challenge facing businesses is to ensure environmental reporting is a valuable environmental management device and a way of offering stakeholders credible data concerning their environmental activities. The Future of Environmental reporting Environmental reporting has conventionally been a voluntary way of conveying environmental performance to stakeholders. In the recent past, there has been a shift toward making environmental reporting compulsory. Some countries like the Netherlands and France have already initiated laws on environmental reporting (Thompson and Bebbington, 2003). However, the international standards do not spell out that organizations’ environment performance information be disclosed to the general public. Role of the stakeholder in Environmental Reporting There is credible evidence against common suggestion that environmental reporting will rise along with the strictness of a company’s effect on the environment. But a number of complex dynamics drive environmental reporting resolutions within sectors and individual organization as noted by Gray (2000). Stakeholders’ role in environmental reporting is as equally important as organization’s relative impact on the environment. Environmental reporting decisions are likely to be influenced by the maturity, self-knowledge and a lasting vision of the company, which is in turn greatly influenced by the quality of leadership (Thompson and Bebbington, 2003). Stakeholders’ role in environmental reporting is essential since the shape of an organization’s environmental report is basically driven by their needs. More studies in this field might create a technique to gauge the impacts of good leadership and stakeholders on organization’s growth. The degree of public scrutiny on a company’s image is perhaps the possible predictor of the span of exposure of various environmental issues than other predictors. This agrees with the earlier finding that the depth and breadth of environmental reporting is determined by the contributions of the stakeholders as industry categories. For example, consumer-oriented sectors commit more resources to environmental reporting than other sectors (Thompson and Bebbington, 2003). The wider agenda of corporate responsibility (CR) is often acknowledged by utilities, health care delivery institutions and financial organizations, which are sectors frequently in the media scrutiny. The special focus in the health care delivery sector’s reporting on environmental activities at the expense of areas such as sustainability further reveals that broader public scrutiny is a strong determining aspect in the forming of environmental reports. Clearly high intensity sectors such as oil and gas and utilities are leading in the debate on environmental issues. Yet, basic materials which are also high intensity sector are noticeably trailing. Whereas global giants like BP must face up to rising consumer scrutiny, the comparatively unknown local companies are confronted with far less public scrutiny. These findings restate the intricate set of factors that can lead to mature and balanced environmental reporting resolutions, which are of more differing degree of public scrutiny (Porritt, 2005).These finding are exciting and hence merit further discussions. Conclusion Knowing that there is a potential clash between business goals and social responsibility, researchers contend that environmental reporting must be seen as the most crucial activities even though the most ignored aspect (Miles et al, 2002). Environmental reporting is vital in consideration of areas where resources are over-used because they experience production of more wastes than what can be taken in by the biosphere. This in essence is completely basic for any consideration of sustainability (Thompson and Bebbington, 2003). Solomon and Lewis (2002) note that examining at how businesses interact with social justice issues and their impact on wealth distribution would permit evaluation of their role in social segregation and poverty. To disclose environmental impacts of the organizations’ operations can be likened to the way we are democratically organized as a society. As a democratic unit, we structure our society in a manner that maintains us within ecological limit and improves the plight of the poor. Environmental reporting is potentially neglected since from these standpoints, present environmental reporting practice frequently presents only insignificant or selective information that an organization has done either (Belal, 2000). In spite of being a sound examination of the above concerns, environmental reporting has tended to be an exercise in exposing only the positive elements of business activity. The role that is played by environmental reporting in informing stakeholders and society is not hard to underplay accurately since it can be shallow. Environmental reporting should not be looked at in isolation. Environmental reporting is one sign of the manner in which businesses perceive and approach society and the natural environment (Deegan, 2002). If environmental reporting comprehensively reflects the impression that there were significant conflicts between business goals and environmental welfare, this may subsequently be an avenue by which an organization could be opened up and evaluated (Miles et al, 2002). Environmental reporting approaches like ecological foot printing have the strength to disclose elemental conflicts and as such move some way towards transforming awareness among stakeholders and society at large (Gray, 2000). Such environmental reporting would also influence the businesses themselves by disclosing and probing the very processes by which there could be conflict between company goals and the environment. For a charitable activity, this certainly presumes that businesses would be influenced to disclose conflicts (Miles et al, 2002). As discussed earlier, businesses do not seem to believe there is a conflict and so are not inclined to carry out exercises of this nature. Another likely interpretation is certainly the idea that employees within businesses do hold rooted attitudes about conflicts between organizations, the society and the environment. In this manner, they are not aware that exercises in accountability may well unearth negative truths about themselves (Patten, 2002). In both ways, the propositions for environmental reporting are lucid. If an individual thinks that environmental reporting should disclose honestly conflicts between business goals and environmental criteria, then voluntarism only is not likely to be adequate to attain the quality of reporting that is required as opined by Belal (2000). In a nut shell, environmental reporting have the strength to offer us with the foundations to debate the extent to which the present world is perhaps the best world ever or whether is presently naturally unsustainable. This means that what is needed is an open-eyed endeavor in order to appreciate what accountability and sustainability might really mean for the global economies. To accomplish this, the present trends in encouraging and fostering businesses to implement new reporting approaches must be nurtured and sustained. The present initiative by international bodies such as UNEP and ACCA need to be expanded and reinforced. It is perhaps necessary that environmental reporting ceases to be an area of a minority of large business organizations (Miles et al, 2002). Bibliography Belal, A. (2000) ‘Environmental Reporting in Developing Countries: Empirical Evidence from Bangladesh’, Eco-Management and Auditing, 7: 114–21. Cormier, D and Gordon, I. (2000) An examination of social and environmental reporting strategies, Accounting Auditing and Accountability, Vol14 No5, p587 –616. Deegan, C. (2002) The legitimising effect of social and environmental disclosures, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, Vol15, No3, p282-311. Gray, R and Bebbington, J. (2001) Accounting for the environment. 2nd ed., London: Sage Publications. Gray, R. (2000) ‘Current Developments and Trends in Social and Environmental Auditing, Reporting and Attestation: A Review and Comment’, International Journal of Auditing, 4: 247–68. Miles, S., Hammond, K. and Friedman, A. (2002) Social And Environmental Reporting and Ethical Investment, ACCA Research Report No.77 (London: Certified Accountants Educational Trust). Owen, D and Lehman, G. (2000) Social and environmental accounting: trends and directions for the future, Accounting Forum, vol. 24, no 1, p1 – 4. Patten, D. (2002) ‘The Relation Between Environmental Performance and Environmental Disclosure: a Research Note’, Accounting, Organisations and Society, 27: 763–73. Porritt, J. (2005) Capitalism as if the World Matters. London: Earthscan. Solomon, A and Lewis, L. (2002) ‘Incentives and Disincentives for Corporate Environmental Disclosure’. Business Strategy and the Environment, 11/3, May-June: 154–69. Thompson, I and Bebbington, J. (2003) Social and environmental reporting in the UK: A pedagogic evaluation. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, vol. 16, iss.5, p.507-533. Wilmhurst, T and Frost, G. (2000) Corporate Environment report: A test of Legitimacy theory. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, vol.13, iss. 1, p.10-26 Read More