Environmental Disclosure in Finnish and Swedish Annual and Sustainability Reports -a study of forest industry

Abstract

Background and problem discussion: Sustainable development and corporate social responsibility are more and more important issues in the business world. Companies want to increasingly disclose information on their sustainable performance, and for example disclosures on environmental performance help organizations to manage relationships with their stakeholders. Most of the sustainable reporting follows the Global Reporting Initiatives Guidelines. Furthermore, reporting can be influenced by public concern, culture, size and environment-sensitivity of the company. Aims: This study aims to examine what environmental disclosures look like between Finnish and Swedish forest, paper and pulp industry companies. Comparison is done by examining sustainability and annual reports of selected companies. Method and theory: This study concentrates on environmental disclosures in sustainability and annual reports of forest companies. The theoretical framework is based on voluntary and mandatory regulations, and furthermore, on cultural, legitimacy and stakeholder theories. The method used to analyze companies is an extended content analysis model, so called CONI (consolidated narrative interrogation) model, developed by Beck, Campbell and Shrives (2006). Empirical findings: The empirical findings consist of investigating environmental disclosures in sustainability and annual reports of three Finnish and three Swedish forest, paper and pulp industry companies. Most of the CONI models categories can be found in the reports, and environmental disclosures are comprehensive. Majority of the disclosures are similar and disclosure type is mostly narrative. Conclusion: There are many similarities in environmental reporting between forest industry companies in Finland and Sweden. Companies operating in same, environmentally intensive industry tend to have many environmental disclosures and these disclosures tend to be similar. In addition, companies report that it is profitable to be sustainable.