Corporate sustainability: historical development and reporting practices

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability disclosure methods-instruments practiced by the two most widely employed indexes/instruments (DJSI World and GRI-G3 Guidelines). The paper suggests that the newly created triple bottom line (TBL) reporting practices need to undergo further standardization and enforcement to avoid, or give early warnings about, future corporate mismanagement that leads to socio-economic consequences detrimental to investors and consumers in general. Design/methodology/approach -This paper utilizes sample firms from the DJSI World Index and the GRI-G3 Sustainability Guidelines membership list to draw inferences on sustainability indicators of performance. The authors compare the GRI reporting guidelines with the disclosure indicators of the DJSI World. Findings -The authors' findings suggest that TBL reporting has made enormous progress over the last two decades. However, the two widely used sustainability reporting instruments/indexes (DJSI World and GRI-G3 Guidelines) differ in disclosure practice-methods and the authors recommend that further standardization and enforcement is necessary. The authors' view is that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) should become actively involved with the issue of standardization and enforcement of corporate socio-environmental disclosures. The paper presents evidence that investors have neither rewarded nor penalized firms for adhering to or violating sustainability matters in their corporate decisions. Practical implications -The authors argue for further standardization and enforcement with regard to the disclosure methods of the two widely used (GRI and DJSI) sustainability indicators in order to avoid future corporate mismanagement that leads to (systemic) economic and socio-environmental consequences detrimental to citizen investors and consumers in general. Originality/value -The research is of interest to academicians and practitioners who are interested in the theory and practice of sustainability reporting or TBL reporting. The findings suggest that this newly created disclosure instrument needs to undergo further standardizati...

An Empirical Exploration, Typology, and Definition of Corporate Sustainability

“…Data collection ended with saturation, i.e., when newly sampled texts no longer contributed to the refinement of our results. Details of the studies on corporate sustainability on which this analysis is based can be found in [16,17,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. The conceptual space in these articles and chapters was explored by Content Configuration Analysis (CCA) [33,34].…”

Corporate Sustainability and Shareholder Wealth—Evidence from British Companies and Lessons from the Crisis

“…These difficulties can be attributed mainly to the wide range of CSR indicators applied and the methodological approaches. Apart from that, if investors are to penalize or award firms for being socially and environmentally oriented, such activities must be available to the public in the form of self-generated reporting or third party analyses [52]. Furthermore, independent external actors must verify the presented engagement to ensure a minimum level of credibility and unselfishness.…”

Qualidade da divulgação socioambiental: um estudo sobre a acurácia das informações contábeis nos relatórios de sustentabilidade

“…2015 das empresas e problemas têm sido apontados na prática narrativa (BOUTEN et al, 2011;RICCIO, 2011;LESZCZYNSKA, 2012;CHRISTOFI;CHRISTOFI;SISAYE, 2012;TANNURI;VAN BELLEN, 2014). Índices gerais de qualidade da divulgação, que incluem elementos quantitativos para caracterizar uma boa divulgação, também têm sido disponibilizados.…”

“…Estudos acadêmicos têm buscado analisar a divulgação nos RS (DEEGAN; RANKIN, 1997;DIAS, 2006;CARVALHO, 2007;CASTRO;MACEDO, 2010;BOUTEN et al, 2011;RICCIO, 2011;LESZCZYNSKA, 2012;CHRISTOFI;CHRISTOFI;SISAYE, 2012;MORISUE;RIBEIRO;PENTEADO, 2013;TANNURI;VAN BELLEN, 2014), mas não foram encontrados trabalhos que tenham analisado as características de acurácia das informações reportadas, de acordo com os critérios propostos neste trabalho. O estudo busca contribuir na discussão acadêmica sobre a accountability da sustentabilidade e na análise das informações contábeis necessárias para um relato de qualidade nas divulgações socioambientais.…”