Audit committee attributes, board of director’s independence and energy disclosure for environmental sustainability in Nigeria

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to examine how audit committee (AC) attributes influence quality and quantity disclosure of energy consumed by the listed nonfinancial firms for the period of five years (2016–2020). The study aims at providing empirical evidence on how board of director’s independence influences the relationship between AC attributes and firms’ energy in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) on world climate policy. Design/methodology/approach The study obtained data from a sample of 83 listed nonfinancial firms, content analysis technique was used to compute energy disclosure indexes using global reporting initiative standards, while regression analysis was conducted to test the relationship among research variables. Findings The study revealed that AC independence, diversity and meetings were significantly related with energy disclosure. Also, the study found that other variables were insignificantly related with energy disclosure. Research limitations/implications The study is constrained for not considering all listed firms in the country. Furthermore, the study considered selected attributes, other important audit-committee size attributes such as audit-committee size, audit-committee size tenure could be study in by the future study. Practical implications The study’s findings would have practical implications for corporations and other business organizations seeking to actively involve the energy-related SDGs 7 and 13 in their business models and successfully communicate these efforts to stakeholders. Originality/value To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first study that provides empirical evidence on the effect of AC attributes on the energy disclosure using effect of board independence as moderator in Nigeria.