Corporate voluntary greenhouse gas reporting: Stakeholder pressure and the mediating role of the chief executive officer

Abstract

The study sheds light on the extent to which various stakeholder pressures influence voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how the impact is explained and moderated chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics of 215 FTSE 350 listed U.K. companies for the year 2011. The study developed a classification of GHG emission disclosure based on the guidelines of GHG Protocol, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Global Framework for Climate Risk Disclosure using content analysis. Evidence from the study suggests that some stakeholder pressure (regulatory, creditor, supplier, customer, and board control) positively impacts on GHG disclosure information by firms. We found that stakeholder pressure in the form of regulatory, mimetic, and shareholders pressure positively influenced the disclosure of GHG information. We also found that creditor pressure also had a significant negative relationship with GHG disclosure. Although CEO age had a direct negative effect on GHG voluntary disclosure, its moderation effect on stakeholder pressure influence on GHG disclosure was only significant on regulatory pressure.

Financial materiality in the informativeness of sustainability reporting

“…Moreover, by focusing on materiality and the industry‐sensitive nature of environmental and social risks, this study responds to calls to explore how industrial forces affect the governance role of firm disclosure (Brammer & Pavelin, 2008; Amel‐Zadeh & Serafeim, 2018; Shahab et al, 2020). Finally, our automated content analysis (El‐Haj, Rayson, et al, 2019) of all the electronic documents filed with SEDAR by the sample firms improves on conventional methods, such as examining only annual or sustainability reports (e.g., Clarkson, Fang, Li, & Richardson, 2013), to obtain a more comprehensive assessment of ESG disclosure (Chithambo, Tingbani, Afrifa, Gyapong, & Damoah, 2020; Diouf & Boiral, 2017).…”

“…As discussed above, the purpose of ESG disclosure is to provide equity and nonequity stakeholders with reliable, comparable, and relevant information about three categories of risk factors that may affect an organization's future performance, and therefore, its value (Chithambo, Tingbani, Afrifa, Gyapong, & Damoah, 2020). Currently, and according to the Canadian Securities Administrators' (CSA) disclosure requirements, ESG disclosure is voluntary and Canadian firms can use six different regulatory fillings to voluntarily disclose material ESG information: Financial Statements (NI 51‐102), Management's Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) (Form 51‐102F1); Annual Information Form27 (AIF) (Form 51‐102 F2); Information Circular (Form 51‐102 F5); Executive Compensation (Form 51‐102 F6); and in the Disclosure of Corporate Governance Practices (Forms 58‐101 F1 and F2) (CSA, 2010).…”

“…The value relevance refers to the information's ability to capture or summarize a firm's activity that would affect the firm's share value (Francis & Schipper, 1999). For its part, material information is defined as any “information that presents a substantial likelihood that the disclosure of the omitted fact would have been viewed as having significantly altered the total mix of information made available.” Although ESG information is unquestionably important to capital markets, it might not have the same value relevance to equity (investors) and nonequity stakeholders (Chithambo, Tingbani, Afrifa, Gyapong, & Damoah, 2020; Whitehead, 2017). Similarly, the same ESG information (or ESG factor) might not be as value relevant for all types of business.…”

Shareholders' environmental profile and its impact on firm's environmental proactivity: An institutional approach

“…As regards managerial implications, our study offers some recommendations to managers on how they should deal with the different pressures exerted by dominant shareholders (national or foreign). For example, managers may play a mediating role between the different influences of the dominant shareholders, as seen in previous studies (Chithambo, Tingbani, Agyapong, Gyapong, & Damoah, 2020). It is also important for dominant shareholders, in the context of the new call for green and sustainable investing, to acquire knowledge and capital to increase environmental proactivity.…”

Sustainability strategies by companies in the global coffee sector

“…However, stakeholders do not have equal influence on company practices, and the response of companies to their demands differs according to stakeholder type and status, and company characteristics (Darnall et al, 2010;Goodmanet al, 2017;Perrault & Clark, 2016;Shubham et al, 2018). Stakeholders have been found to affect, inter alia, corporate disclosure (Chithambo et al, 2020;Gallego-Alvarez et al, 2017;Liesen et al, 2015;Roberts, 1992), sustainability innovation (Zhang & Zhu, 2019), strategy (Shnayder & Van Rijnsoever, 2018), practices (Alda, 2019;Graham, 2020;Shubham et al, 2018) and their implementation (Helmig et al, 2016).…”