Consideration is given as to whether or not a company discloses, or intends to ... three industries (water, energy and automobile) due to the small number of .... contacted companies by telephone with a view to ascertaining who was most.
WARWICK BUSINESS SCHOOL
WARWICK BUSINESS SCHOOL NO. 323 A SECTORAL COMPARISON OF CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING AND DISCLOSURE BY
Stephanie Stray & Joan Ballantine
OCTOBER 1999
RESEARCH PAPERS
at the cutting edge of theory and practice
A Sectoral Comparison of Corporate Environmental Reporting and Disclosure Stephanie Stray & Joan Ballantine Warwick Business School University of Warwick Coventry CV4 7AL Tel: 01203 522144 Fax: 01203 52****
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Abstract The paper considers the results of a survey of companies in the automotive, banking, electronics, energy, food and drink and water sectors in the UK. Consideration is given as to whether or not a company discloses, or intends to disclose, environmental information. For those companies who do disclose environmental information, details are presented of the various media that are used for such disclosures apart from the use of the annual reports and accounts and specialised environmental reports that have, typically, been the focus of previous research. Information is also provided upon the sources of guidance used by companies in preparing environmental disclosures as well as the stakeholders that are consulted. Sectoral differences are revealed for all aspects that are considered
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Introduction
Environmental reporting has had a somewhat chequered history in the UK and has received rather more patchy attention that other aspects of social reporting such as health and safety. The quality of information that is disclosed, if it is disclosed at all, has been very variable and is often separated from financial reporting (Anon, 1994). Reviews of the development of work that has been undertaken in this area can be found in Stray & Ballantine (1996) and Mathews (1997). It is apparent, however, that previous research has tended to focus mainly on environmental information publicised in annual reports and accounts (ARA) or in environmental reports (ERs).
Of the many researchers that have analysed either the ARAs of companies or specialised ERs in order to assess the nature and extent of environmental reporting by companies, a common approach has been to use content analysis as a means to assess the extent of environmental disclosures. Examples are Mason & Maxwell (1975), Ernst & Ernst (1978), Roberston (1978), Beresford & Cowen (1979), Ingram & Frazier (1980), Wiseman (1982), Guthrie (1983), Brooks (1986), Cowen et al. (1987), Mirza (1987), Guthrie and Parker (1990), Zeghal & Ahmed (1990), Hall and Jones (1991), Yamagami & Kokobu (1991), Gorman (1992), Gibson & Guthrie (1995), Halme & Huse (1997), Walden & Schwartz (1997) and Burritt & Welch (1997). It is not the purpose here to provide a review of these previous findings, but reference is made to reported conclusions in so far as they are relevant to what we discuss here.
Other researchers have used questionnaires sent to companies, typically to finance directors or environmental managers, to assess the nature of environmental reporting. Some examples are Buzby and Falk (1979), Bebbington et al (1994), Deegan and Gordon (1996), Tilt (1996), and Fisher (1996). This approach is also taken here as it not only enables the exploration of what has been reported but also enables exploration of wider aspects of environmental reporting. In particular, questionnaires facilitate the examination of other mechanisms for environmental reporting than those confined to the ARA and ER alone.
This paper provides information upon the results of a survey of six different industrial sectors as to the extent of their environmental disclosures, if any. It indicates the very different extent of disclosure between sectors and the differing mechanisms for such disclosures and also indicates the sources of information used by companies to provide environmental information.
Methodology
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The One-Source database was used to compile a sampling frame of six industrial sectors using holding company names. The six sectors were automobile, banking, electronics, energy, water and food and drink. These sectors were selected because they span a range of environmental issues and, more particularly, a range of environmental impacts. Typically, the energy and water industries would commonly be perceived as having substantial environmental impacts, whereas banking would be perceived to be at the other end of the environmental impact spectrum. The automobile, food and drink and electronics industries are more likely to be placed between the two extremes. This means the sample includes responses from those that have faced very different pressures upon them to provide environmental information (KPMG, 1994).
Samples were selected systematically from each sector, according to turnover, with complete enumeration in the case of three industries (water, energy and automobile) due to the small number of companies. All companies selected for inclusion into the sample were telephoned to establish the most appropriate person to whom to send the questionnaire. This was done to attempt to boost the response rate (rather than sending questionnaires to anonymous individuals). The questionnaires included a stamped addressed reply envelope, to encourage replies, and reminders, with an additional copy of the questionnaire, were sent after approximately three weeks to non-respondents (again, to boost response rates).
Table 1 indicates the number of companies in each sector, the number of questionnaires sent out, the number of usable replies received and the response rate. Also given are various reasons for non-response which were indicated, in some cases, on returned uncompleted questionnaires.
The overall response rate of 33% is perhaps a little disappointing. However, it is noticeable that the highest response rate of 73% came from the two sectors, out of the six, that may be regarded as the ones most obviously having environmental impacts and the lowest response rate from the sector perceived as having the least impact (banking). This is a point to which we return later.
Background characteristics of the respondents and companies
Concerning respondents, Table 2 shows that over half (54%) are environmental or health and safety officers or managers and about one fifth are directors. Similarly, over half are in senior management positions and relatively few are junior managers or specialists.
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Table 3 shows the mean and standard deviation turnover of the companies. As can be seen from the means there is considerable variation between the sectors and the standard deviations also reveal substantial variation within the sectors. Largely due to the latter, there is no statistically significant difference between sector turnover means (using analysis of variance, F5,196 = 1.241, p= 0.291).
Disclosure of environmental information
We asked companies whether or not they disclose environmental information in any form and if not, did they intend to do so in the future. Table 4 summarises the overall results.
About one-third currently disclose environmental information and about one-fifth of the remainder plan to do so (giving a total of nearly one-half who do, or who intend to, disclose). Of those intending to disclose information, over two-thirds plan to do so in the next couple of years. Therefore the proportion claiming they currently disclose environmental information is, unsurprisingly, somewhat higher than that reported in Company Reporting (1994, p3) at 27%, which is based just on ARA only but rather less than the 50% of companies disclosing information in annual reports claimed by the ACCA (Anon, 1994).
However, as already anticipated, disclosure patterns vary considerably by sector as shown in Table 5. Environmental disclosure is most widespread in the high environmental impact sectors (water and energy) whereas in the low environmental impact sector of banking disclosure is relatively rare. Examining plans for the future amongst those who do not currently disclose environmental information indicates that the relative situation between the sectors is unlikely to change significantly.
It is also the case that response rates for the six sectors are related to the extent that companies in the sector disclose environmental information. The highest response rates were received for the water and energy sectors that, as can be seen from Table 5, also have the highest disclosure rates. Similarly as the response rates decline as one moves from the food and drink sector to electronics, automobile and then banking so do the rates of disclosure. This is probably a reflection of the fact that companies who disclose environmental information are more likely to respond to, or have an individual who will respond to, a questionnaire upon this topic than companies who do not undertake such disclosure. Therefore, disclosure rates are, if anything, likely to be overstated.
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Unsurprisingly, companies that do disclose environmental information are likely to be larger than those that do not do so. The mean turnover for the 75 companies disclosing environmental information was £780,990 compared with £80,797 for the 121 that do not (significantly lower at the 1% level using a t-test and assuming unequal variances). This finding is one that has been reported by researchers elsewhere (Wiseman, 1982, Perrin, 1997 and Owen et al., 1997).
When we consider the individual sectors the same aspect concerning size also applies. Table 6 indicates, by sector, the mean turnover figures for companies disclosing and not disclosing information. Table 6 also gives the results of using a MannWhitney U test, upon each sector, to compare the difference in median turnovers for those that do and those that do not disclose environmental results. The Mann-Whitney test was used because of the small sample sizes and the desire to avoid the assumption of normality of turnover associated with t-tests. The results reveal a significantly greater median in the first three cases (automobile, banking and electronics) at the 5% level of significance for companies that do disclose environmental information. In the case of the food and drink industry the results are significant at only the 10% level. In the case of the energy and the water industries there are only one and zero companies in each industry, respectively, that do not disclose information so the tests are inapplicable.
As has been said, for this study we initially contacted companies by telephone with a view to ascertaining who was most likely to be responsible for environmental issues. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to find that where we were put in contact with an environmental officer or manager or a health and safety officer, companies were much more likely to disclose environmental information (70% of companies), than in cases where we were put in contact with an executive, director or manager in another area, where only 24 percent of companies disclosed environmental information.
It is also the case that although we had many senior managers amongst our respondents, it was the responses coming from middle managers, in particular, that indicated a company disclosed environmental information (46%) compared to the respondents who were senior managers (28%) or junior managers (38%). This could be indicative of the fact that environmental issues are not taken seriously at the senior management level. Alternatively, it could be a function of the fact that it is the larger companies that disclose information and these have rather different managerial structures to smaller companies. More cynically, it could just be that senior managers tend to pass (relevant) questionnaires to their more junior colleagues to process!
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Environmental Policy Statements
We also ascertained if a company had a formal written environmental policy statement or not. Whilst only 42% (out of 226 for which information was available) did so there was considerable variation by sector as seen in Table 7. Unsurprisingly, the companies that are more likely to disclose environmental information are more likely to have a formal environmental policy. Of the 94 companies with a formal written environmental policy, 64 (68%) disclose environmental information compared with only 13 (17%) of the 124 companies that do not have a formal written environmental policy (this is significantly less at the 5% level of significance). In this latter case, it is difficult to understand the basis for reporting information when there are no policy objectives set for the organisation. What also comes as a surprise is that nearly one-third of companies (32%) who do have a formal written environmental policy do not disclose environmental information.
How environmental information is disclosed As has been mentioned, many studies of environmental disclosure consider only the use of the ARA special ERs. We wanted to explore what use companies make of alternative means for disclosure and to what extent examination of only these two media gives a biased impression of what is undertaken. Accordingly we asked respondents to indicate the various means by which different media were used for environmental disclosure. For the companies disclosing environmental information, it is certainly true that the two media that have traditionally been the focus of attention are the ones most commonly employed with 52% of such companies using specialist ERs and 51% using the ARAs. However, we found that this really revealed only part of the picture. Site visits were used by 46% of such companies, press releases by 44%, the provision of site information by 41%, exhibitions by 33%, videos by 20% and various other means by 12%.
Most of the companies that have disclosed information use more than one means of doing so. Of the 71 companies that have disclosed information in some form or other, 75% (53) used more than one of the above means and over one third (35%) used four or more of the above methods. A fairly typical combination was to disclose information in both an ER and in the ARA (31%) plus a selection of the other methods described above. A number of authors have been rather hostile about companies’ motivations for environmental disclosure suggesting that it is done as a rather placatory exercise on the
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grounds that it is deemed good to be seen to do something (Jackson, 1990; Gray et al., 1987; Geddes, 1991). However, the findings here suggest that some companies, at least, go to considerable efforts, entailing not inconsiderable costs, to supply information and certainly do more than these rather cynical comments suggest.
Furthermore, it is apparent that concentration on the traditional two media for environmental reporting leads to consideration of only part of the picture. In fact, of the companies disclosing environmental information, 21% used neither their ARA nor an ER to do so but relied solely on other means. Therefore, conclusions drawn from such studies relying upon the traditional two reporting media alone need to be treated with some caution when it comes to statements about the extent of environmental reporting by companies.
There are sectoral differences in the media used for disclosing information. Although based on rather small numbers, and so conclusions can only be tentative, Table 8 provides information on the different media used for disclosure in the different sectors. Also provided at the bottom of the table are details of the average number of media used per company.
Some sectors tend to utilise one or more media in particular whereas others do not appear to show any real consensus as to the approach to be taken. Thus for the automobile, electronics and food and drink sectors, there are no obviously preferred media for disclosure although, in each case, companies average just under two different media. Exactly what these two media are is something that varies from company to company. The banking sector appears to favour the use of ARAs as well as, possibly, ERs. However, as a sector they utilise fewer media than any of the other five groups. The energy sector especially favour ERs and also ARAs and, to a lesser degree, videos. As they average more than three media per company it is not surprising that use is made, to some degree, of all the other media. The water industry make use, on average, of more media than any of the other sectors and favour ERs and press releases in particular, followed by ARAs, site visits, site information and exhibitions and videos.
Environmental reports
Separate consideration is given here to ERs since, for many companies, they represent the main means of communication of their environmental performance to interested stakeholders. There is also some suggestion in the literature that ARAs are not the most appropriate vehicle to use to convey environmental information and that a separate booklet, such as an ER, is deemed more desirable by stakeholders (Craig & Bailey, 1987). Considering ERs in more detail we examined the number
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of such reports that companies had produced in order to establish something about their experience of producing such information. Of the 38 companies that had experience of producing one or more the mean number of ERs was 3.19 (the standard deviation is 1.96 and the median number of reports is 3).
There is no evidence that more ERs have been produced by larger companies. The correlation between the number of ERs produced and company turnover equals 0.1610 (n=203, p = 0.348) for all companies and the correlation equals 0.2344 (n= 36, p = 0.175) for the companies producing an environmental report for whom turnover figures are available.
The use of ERs, historically, is very variable by sector with the water, electronics and energy sectors having more experience of producing reports, on average, than is true for the automotive, food and drink and banking sectors as can be seen from Table 9.
It may well be expected that industries where companies have a longer history of producing ERs are those in which companies are more likely to disclose information. Environmental disclosure has been more of a “tradition” (for some companies at least), and the environment more of an issue, and one might have anticipated other companies following suit. Comparing the results of the above table with those of Table 5, it can be seen this indeed tends to be the case. The exception is the electronics industry where the average number of ERs produced is relatively high but the percentage of companies disclosing environmental information is low. This may be due to the fact that there are only four companies who have produced ERs. Alternatively it may relate to a particular sub-sector of that industry group where pressure to provide environmental information has been somewhat greater than it is for the rest of the industry.
An issue that has become something of a bone of contention is whether ERs are externally verified or not (Gallhofer & Haslam, 1997). We asked respondents in those companies who produced such reports whether or not they did have their reports externally verified. A total of 53% (21 out of 40) did have their ER verified and a further 10% (4) said they planned to do so in the future whereas 35% (14) said they had no such intentions. So whilst over a half of the companies that have produced one or more ER have had them verified externally, this appears unlikely to increase significantly in the immediate future. Nor is it the case that it is larger companies to tend to opt for external verification. In our sample there was no significant difference in the mean turnover for companies that do have their reports verified and those that do not (for those that produce ER).
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Experience of verification varies considerably by sector. For food and drink companies three-quarters (3 out of 4) have had their environmental report verified, for energy companies nearly two-thirds (7 out of 11) have had their environmental report verified and for water companies one half (7 out of 14) have had their report verified. The remaining figures are 40% for automobile (2 out of 5), and one-third in each case for banking and electronics (1 out of 3 in each case).
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Sources of information
We also ascertained what sources of information respondents used to provide them with guidance upon the nature of their environmental disclosures. The most popular source of information for the automotive, electronics and energy sectors was BS7750. For the banking sector both the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and sources other than the ones we listed proved equally popular. For the remaining two industries there is no real consensus about the source of information that is used. However, it is apparent that seeking guidance from any source is least likely to be undertaken by companies in the food and drink sector and most likely to be undertaken in the case of the energy sector.
We were also interested in the groups that companies may approach to discuss the nature of the environmental information that they disclose. Previous research by Spencer-Cooke (1994) indicated that companies sought information about the environmental information they should provide by consulting with employees, local communities, environmental groups and the public. Table 11 summarises the results for our survey for each sector for 13 different groups.
It can be seen that companies in the automotive, energy and food and drink sectors tend to consult local authorities and employees and, in the case of food and drink companies, also customers. In the electronics sector it is employees, customers and to a lesser extent local authorities and suppliers. In the banking sector the main group is environmental groups and in the water industry the main groups are employees and the regulator. So whilst there is some agreement with previous findings, the extent of consultation is perhaps less widespread than might be thought. Indeed, it is noticeable that 11 of the 77companies (14%) had no discussions with any group at all. Given the importance that has been stressed of communicating with stakeholders groups and keeping such channels of communication open (Hutchinson, 1992; Mastrandonas & Strife, 1992, Huizing & Dekker, 1992) this is perhaps more than a little worrying
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Conclusion
Environmental disclosure remains a minority activity although it can take diverse forms and is not just confined to the use of ERs and ARAs alone. About one third of the companies in our sample indicated that they disclose environmental information in some form and this appears likely to increase in the relatively short term. However, it is also apparent that the more widespread existence of environmental disclosure is likely to take place in the very industries where reporting is currently more frequent. Thus sectoral differences in the occurrence of environmental reporting are likely to widen rather than diminish. It is also apparent that, regardless of sector, it is the larger companies that tend to disclose information.
Nearly 60% of companies in the sample do not have an environmental policy statement and even where companies do have such a statement it is not necessarily the case that they disclose environmental information. Furthermore a number of companies are reporting upon their environmental performance with no clear policy statement in place. It is, therefore, not surprising that comparisons of what individual companies report lead to very diverse findings.
Environmental reporting is not confined just to the use of ERs and the ARA. Indeed, a significant proportion of companies disclose environmental information but make use of neither of these mechanisms to do so. Therefore, future consideration of environmental disclosure needs to take account of the use of videos, site information and visits and press releases to gain a fuller picture of the information that is disclosed and of what companies are doing in the area.
There is no agreed consensus on the source of guidance to be used when providing environmental information either overall or within a specific sector. Again, this means that it is not surprising that other researchers have commented on the very diverse offerings that are produced. This is likely to be exacerbated by the fact that consultation with possibly interested stakeholders appears to take place to a limited degree and it is apparent that some organisations undertake no such consultation at all. This
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brings into question the motivation for such reporting and the reasons behind this activity (Gray et al., 1993, Gray et al, 1995, Boulton, 1995, Luscombe, 1993).
It is also apparent from the results we have reported that there is a spectrum of environmental disclosure activity across the sectors we have considered. In the energy and water sector environmental disclose is common and is likely to become even more widespread, environmental policy statements are common, information is produced using a variety of media including the ARA and ERs and other media and any ER is fairly likely to be externally verified. Guidance is sought from BS7750 about what to report and consultation, although not widespread, does take place at least with employees (and possibly with other groups as well)
At the other extreme of the spectrum is the banking sector where environmental disclosure is relatively rare and is unlikely to increase in the near future. The existence of any formal environmental policy in this sector is rare and where environmental information is disclosed it tends to be confined to the use of ARAs and ERs although even the use of ERs is relatively new. The main source of guidance upon environmental information is the ICC and little consultation takes place except with environmental groups. In fact one gains the impression that this sector as a whole has little interest in the issue of environmental reporting and where it does take place it is a relatively token gesture not undertaken with any serious conviction.
The remaining three sectors (electronics, automotive and food and drink) fall between these two extremes. However there is very little consensus upon the preferred media to be used to supply environmental information although consultation does take place with employees and local authorities (and customers in the case of the food and drink sector) about the information to be reported.
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Gray, R., Owen, D. & Maunders, K. (1987) Corporate Social and Environmental Reporting: A Review of the Literature and a Longitudinal Study of UK Disclosure, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, vol. 8, no. 2, pp47-77. Gray, R., Owen, D. & Maunders, K. (1987) Corporate Social Reporting: Accounting and Accountability, Prentice Hall International, London Gray, R., Bebbington, J. & Walters, D. (1993) Accounting for the Environment, Paul Chapman. Gray, R., Kouhy, R. & Lavers, S. (1995) Corporate Social and Environmental Reporting: A Review of the Literature and a Longitudinal Study of UK Disclosure, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp47-77. Guthrie, J. (1983) Corporate Social Accounting and Reporting: An Australian Empirical Study, AAANZ conference. Guthrie, J. and Parker, L. D. (1990) Corporate Social Disclosure Practice: a Comparative Economic Analysis, Advances in Public Interest Accounting, 3, pp159-175. Hall, C. & Jones, M. (1991) Social Responsibility Accounting: Myth or Reality, Management Accounting, March pp 34-35, 40. Halme, M. & Huse, M. (1997) The Influence of Corporate Governance, Industry and Country Factors on Environmental Reporting, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 13, 2, pp137-158. Huizing, A. & Dekker, H. C. (1992) The Environmental Issue on the Dutch Political Market, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 17, no. 5, pp427-448. Hutchinson, C. (1992) Business and the Environmental Challenge: A Guide for Managers, The Conservation Trust, Reading. Ingram, R. W. and Frazier, K. B. (1980) Environmental Performance and Social Disclosure, Journal of Accounting Research, 18, 2, pp Jackson, S. (1990) Screaming Green Murder?, Director, Vol. 43, Issue 11, May, pp56-61. KPMG (1994) UK Environmental Reporting Survey 1994. Luscombe, N. (1993) When Clean Means Green, CA Magazine, June/July, p3. Mason,. K. & Maxwell, S. R. (1975) The Changing Attitude to Corporate Social Responsibility, The Business Quarterly, Winter, pp42-50. Mastrandonas, . & Strife, P. T. (1992) Corporate Environmental Communications: Lessons from Investors, The Columbia Journal of Business, Fall & Winter, pp235-240. Mathews, M. R. (1997) Twenty-five years of Social and Environmental Accounting Research: Is there a Silver Jubilee to Celebrate?, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol. 10, No.4, pp481-531. Mirza, A. M. (1987) Social Reporting by the UK Companies, Business Graduate, April, pp35-38. Owen, D., Gray, R. & Adams, R. (1997) The Greening of Company Accounts, Certified Accountant, 89, 5, pp22-27.
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Perrin, S. (1997) Green Oil, Accountancy Age, Vol. 4, December, pp1-23. Roberston, J. (1978) Corporate Social Reporting by New Zealand Companies, Journal of Contemporary Business, Winter, p113-133. Spencer-Cooke, A. (1994) Where Silence is not Golden: Towards the Strategic Use of Corporate Environmental Reporting for Company Evaluation, ACCA Occasional Research Paper No. 16, Certified Accountants Educational Trust, London. Stray, S & Ballantine, J. (1996) Current Issues in Environmental Disclosure, Environmental Accounting and Sustainable Development, Vol. 2, EMAA Workshop Report, Limperg Institutut, pp1-42. Tilt, C. A. (1996) The Influence of External Pressure Groups on Corporate Social Disclosure: Some Empirical Evidence, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, 7, pp47-72. Yamagami, T & Kokobu, K. (1991) A Note on the Corporate Social Disclosure in Japan, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, 4, 4, pp32-39. Walden, W. D. & Schwartz, B. B. (1997) Environmental Disclosure and Public Policy Pressure, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Summer, vol. 6, no. 2, pp125-155. Wiseman, J. (1982) An Evaluation of Environmental Disclosures Made in Corporate Annual Reports, Accounting, Organisations and Society, 7, 1, pp53-63 Zeghal, D. & Ahmed, S. A. (1990) Comparisons of Social Responsibility Information disclosure Media used by Canadian Firms, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, 3, 1, pp38-53.
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Table 1: Population, Sample Sizes and Response Rates by Industrial Sector Banking
Automobile
Electronics
Energy
Water
Population size 403 125 406 22 Questionnaires 197 125 198 22 Replies 57 38 75 17 Usable replies 39 32 64 16 Response rate 20% 26% 32% 73% Reasons for non-response:Company policy 5 0 2 5 1 Won’t/unable 5 1 3 3 0 No time/resources 1 4 4 1 0 Not relevant 6 1 1 1 0 Other 1 0 1 4 0 Total number of 18 6 11 14 1 reasons * includes 7 companies for whom it was impossible to identify the industrial sector.
22 22 16 16 73%
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Food & Drink 201 132 67 53 40%
0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 1179 696 277 227* 33% 13 12 10 9 6 50
Table 2: Job Title of Respondents and Level of Seniority Job Title Number Percent Director 49 22.0 Env. Officer or Manager 33 14.8 Other Manager 66 29.6 Health & Safety 22 9.9 Chief Executive 2 0.9 Others 51 22.9 Total 223 100.0
Seniority
Number Percent Senior Management 122 Middle Management 71 Junior Management 21 9.4 Non-management Specialist 9 4.0 Total 223 100.0
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54.7 31.8
Table 3: Mean and Standard Deviation Turnover by Industry Sector (£) Standard Deviation turnover (£) Sample Size Sector Mean turnover (£) Energy 820,266 2,136,019 16 Banking 661,466 2,566,446 37 Automobile 480,128 1,228,027 30 Food & drink 151,580 665,310 46 Water 141,191 295,652 15 Electronics 133,934 768,138 58 All* 339,284 1,436,725 203 *Includes 1 company from an unidentifiable sector
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Table 4: Disclosure of any environmental information
Yes No Don’t know
Disclose now 34.4% (78) 62.1% (141) 3.5% (8)
Will disclose in future 22.4% (33) 28.6% (42) 49.0% (72)
Will disclose In next 12 months In next 12-24 months In 2- 5 years Don’t know
Sample size 227 147* * Excludes 2 companies for whom information was not provided
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33.3% (11) 36.4% (12) 27.3% (9) 3.0% (1) 33
Table 5: Those Currently Disclosing, or Intending to Disclose, Environmental Information by Sector Disclose now:-
For those currently not disclosing, do they intend to do so:Sector Yes No (%) Don’t Sample Yes No Don’t know Sample (%) know (%) size (%) (%) (%) size Water 100.0 0.0 0.0 16 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Energy 93.8 6.3 0.0 16 100.0 0.0 0.0 1 Automobile 43.8 53.1 3.1 32 38.9 44.4 16.7 18 Food & drink 28.3 67.9 3.8 53 36.8 36.8 26.3 38 Electronics 18.8 75.0 6.3 64 17.6 43.1 39.2 51* Banking 15.4 84.6 0.0 39 0.0 81.3 18.8 32* * Excludes 1 company in each case for whom information was not available. n.a. = not applicable
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Table 6: Mean turnover figures by whether or not disclose information, by sector
Sector Automobile Banking Electronics Energy Food and drink Water
Mean turnover, £ (number of companies) Disclose Do not disclose information information 564,580 424,278 (14) (15) 3,787,061 56,512 (6) (31) 580,517 11,717 (12) (43) 873,943 15,108 (15) (1) 442,660 38,986 (13) (31) 141,191 (15) (0)
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Z value for MannWhitney test -1.789
p-value for onetailed test 0.037
-2.431
0.008
-2.690
0.004
-
-
-1.505
0.066
-
-
Table 7: Companies with a formal written environmental policy
SECTOR Energy Water Automobile Electronics Food & drink Banking Total
17.9
Yes %
No %
100.0 75.0 48.4 35.9 35.8 79.5 41.6
0.0 25.0 51.6 59.4 58.5 2.6 54.9
Don't know %
Sample size
0.0 0.0 0.0 4.7 5.7
16 16 31 64 53 39
3.5
226*
* Includes 7 companies for which sector information was not available
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Table 8: Media used for environmental disclosure, by sector.
Disclose using: Annual Report & Accounts Environmental reports Press releases Videos Site visits Site information Exhibitions Number of companies in sector Average number of media per company
Automobile 6 40% 6 40% 4 27% 1 7% 4 27% 4 27% 2 13% 15 1.8
Number (and percentage) of companies: Banking Electronic Energy Food & drink 4 4 10 6 57% 33% 67% 40% 3 3 11 4 43% 25% 73% 27% 0 3 8 3 0% 25% 53% 20% 1 1 5 1 14% 8% 33% 7% 0 4 6 5 0% 33% 40% 33% 1 4 5 5 14% 33% 33% 33% 0 3 4 5 0% 25% 27% 33% 7 12 15 15 1.3
1.8
24
3.3
1.9
Water 10 63% 14 88% 12 75% 5 31% 9 56% 8 50% 8 50% 16 4.1
Table 9: Mean number of Environmental Reports Produced by Sector. Sector Water Electronics Energy Automotive Food & Drink Banking Total
Number 13 4 11 4 4 1 37
Mean 3.9 3.8 3.1 2.3 2.0 1.0 3.2
Standard Deviation 1.7 4.3 1.4 1.0 0.8 n.a. 2.0.
25
Table 10: Percentage of companies using different sources of information by sector Source of information
Auto
Banking
Electronics
Energy
BS7750 CBI ICC ACCA etc WICE GEMI CERES PERI Other None of the above
N=15 47 33 20 0 7 13 1 0 33 13
n=4 25 0 50 0 0 0 0 0 50 0
n=12 58 17 25 8 8 8 1 0 42 17
n=14 79 57 36 43 7 0 1 4 14 14
26
Food & drink n=14 21 21 14 14 0 0 0 0 36 36
Water n=15 33 40 13 33 20 7 0 2 7 47
Table 11: Groups Consulted about the Nature of Information to Disclose Group consulted
Employees Local authorities Regulator Shareholders Environmental groups Customers Suppliers Other companies Financial Institutions Consumers Local residents Educational groups General public Others No discussions Total number of companies
Automotive
Banking
47 67 27 27 7 33 13 7 0 7 7 7 0 7 13 15
33 0 0 17 50 17 17 0 17 0 0 0 0 17 17 6
Percentage of companies: Electronics Energy 67 42 33 33 17 58 42 17 8 0 25 8 0 8 25 12
27
69 46 38 38 38 38 38 38 31 31 31 31 15 31 8 13
Food & Drink 60 40 27 33 27 47 13 13 13 13 13 7 13 13 13 15
Water 50 31 44 25 31 19 6 38 13 6 6 13 6 19 13 16
