Compliance with Mandatory Environmental Reporting in Financial Statements: The Case of Spain (2001–2003)

Abstract

accountability, business ethics, mandatory environmental disclosure, social, ethical and environmental reporting, Spain,

Differences of Corporate Environmental Responsibility in Small and Medium Enterprises: Spain and Norway

“…The Questionnaire about the firm's activity is responded to by the own firm, making the answers related to the self-perception of the company, which does not guarantee a fully objective or realistic answer. The way a firm perceives itself has very much to do with the context and the demands where their activities are developed; as regulation improves and enforcement expectations rise, it becomes more difficult for the companies to dismiss compulsory reporting as well as to avoid transparency on their environmental performance [30].…”

Public and Private Sector Environmental Reporting

“…Even though the European recommendation is not mandatory, it considered the establishment at national levels of accounting standards, so that the member States could pick up the guidelines contained in that document. In this sense, different countries such as Denmark, Finland, France, Spain and Portugal have introduced in their accounting legislation some elements of the European recommendation (KPMG and UNEP, 2006;Criado-Jiménez at. al., 2008).…”

“…Norway was the first European country to introduce environmental information on the annual report, through the Enterprise Act of 1989, which required the environmental disclosure in the annual reports of all companies involved in significant pollution businesses (Kolk, 1999;Nyquist, 2003b;Hibbit and Collison, 2004). Spain is also one of the pioneer countries in the EU, in terms of environmental accounting regulations (Criado Jiménez et al, 2008), with the approval of the 1998 Royal Decree 437/1998, of March 20th, concerning the adaptation of the General Accounting Plan to companies of the electrical sector, which made it mandatory for all Spanish companies to present the environmental information in the annual report. Afterwards, this obligation was specifically legislated, through adaptations of the General Accounting Plan, to all concessionary builders of freeways, tunnels, bridges, water suppliers and cleaners, wine industries and sporting anonymous societies.…”

“…Alternatively, the legitimacy theory suggests that the corporate environmental reporting is a function of the intensity of political and social pressures which companies are faced with regarding their environmental performance (Cho and Patten, 2007). In this sense, Larrinaga et al (2002) and Criado-Jiménez et al (2008) state that empirical research has shown that, in some cases, voluntary environmental reporting has been used by companies as a means to obtain legitimacy reflecting a desirable view of their environmental performance. In this sense, many authors have pointed out that the most appropriate approach is to make environmental reporting compulsory (Bebbington, 1999;Mobus, 2005;Criado-Jiménez et al, 2008).…”

“…In this sense, Larrinaga et al (2002) and Criado-Jiménez et al (2008) state that empirical research has shown that, in some cases, voluntary environmental reporting has been used by companies as a means to obtain legitimacy reflecting a desirable view of their environmental performance. In this sense, many authors have pointed out that the most appropriate approach is to make environmental reporting compulsory (Bebbington, 1999;Mobus, 2005;Criado-Jiménez et al, 2008). According to Gallhofer and Haslam (1996), a major part of academics share the opinion of the companies managers that, on the subject of the treatment and disclosure of environmental information, the legislation of voluntary nature should be abandoned in favour of a mandatory disclosure.…”