Environmental Reporting -An examination of the gap between public and private owned companies

Abstract

Background and problem discussion: Companies’ accounting has expanded to contain more than only financial information, including also sustainability, such as environmental and social issues. Environmental reporting increased rapidly after its origin and several guidelines about how to report these issues were established. However, research of some of the largest private owned companies in Sweden showed that their sustainability reporting was not at the level required by public owned companies. Therefore it would, from a government perspective, be interesting to examine if this gap between public and private companies’ environmental reporting still exist. Purpose of the Study: This study aims to examine how the gap in sustainability reporting has developed between public owned and private owned companies during the last years. Annual and sustainability reports of selected companies, both public owned and private owned, will be examined and compared. Method: Since a deep understanding was desirable, was a detailed examination essential. Only the environmental part of the sustainability area were chosen to be included in the study’s examination. Further was a selection of three public owned companies and three private owned chosen to be examined. The data used in this thesis is collected from the companies’ annual and sustainability reports. The model described by Ljungdahl (1999) was seen appropriate and therefore chosen to compare and analyse the selected companies. Empirical findings and analysis: The empirical findings show that the companies report most of the indicators in Ljungdahl’s model. The most frequently reported indicators are those concerning environmental targets and environmental impact. The companies’ reported information are similar, something that can be explained by stakeholder theory and the fact that all companies are in industries with large environmental impact. Conclusion: In this essay, it has not been found any significant differences between public owned and private owned companies’ environmental reporting. The conclusion of this thesis cannot be generalized in all cases though just a selection of companies is included.