Online sustainability information in European local governments

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose an analytical model that shows causal relationships between the amount and nature of information on strategies and the governance of city councils, as well as the contents of different dimensions of sustainability that are disclosed on the websites of local governments in big European cities. This model could reveal if the information is disseminated in a homogeneous and coordinated way and could improve the quality of the information, its coherence and its comparability. Design/methodology/approach – The authors have designed a questionnaire with 75 variables from the Global Reporting Initiative proposal to specify information disclosed on sustainability. The level of information about each of these variables has been gathered by consulting the contents published on the websites of the 142 local governments in the sample. Finally the authors propose a model about the cause-effect relationships between the amount and nature of the information in different dimensions of sustainability on the websites of large cities’ local governments based on the structural equation modelling methodology. Findings – The model obtained reveals that there is coherence in the sustainability information disclosed by large European cities on their websites. However, it is demonstrated that the relations between the amount of information about strategies and the dissemination of information on each of the dimensions of sustainability (economic, social and environmental) do not have the same intensity. Originality/value – The proposed model can be useful as a reference framework to structure online information supplied in a balanced and comprehensive way. This conceptual model can suggest ways for sustainable improvements based on the experience of analysed local governments.

Promoting Online Transparency to Help Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals: An Empirical Study of Local Governments in Latin America

“…This research confirms that reforms carried out within public administrations are influenced by their cultural, political and legal context [2,5,7,17,[30][31][32]49]. However, some researchers have performed comparative analyses of local governments in different countries, and have reported that the explanatory variables of transparency about governmental sustainability (where social and environmental aspects were included) may depend on the administrative culture prevailing in the country (Anglo-Saxon, Southern European or Continental) [2,35,43,50].…”

“…Reflecting growing demands by stakeholders for information, various international organizations have called on governments to publish information on their actions in the field of sustainability [9][10][11]13,41]. In response to these pressures, many government agencies now include references to social and environmental questions in their annual reports [2,4,31,42,43]. In this sense, sustainability, as defined by IFAC [17], combines the economic, social and environmental perspective.…”

“…At the same time, the governmental disclosure of sustainability-related information has attracted considerable research interest. Thus, many papers have recently been presented on information disclosure by the public sector, and especially by local and regional governments in Europe [6,19,25,28,36,[43][44][45][46].…”

Promoting Sustainability Transparency in European Local Governments: An Empirical Analysis Based on Administrative Cultures

“…The method for data collection consisted of: first, two researchers sought the information within websites separately; second, the information indicated was pooled; in case of divergence, a value of 1 was selected, since it meant one of the two researchers had found the variable on the web. This process of data collection has been validated in previous research [58].…”

Application of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to Solve Environmental Sustainability Problems: A Comprehensive Review and Meta-Analysis

“…The results of this paper found that GP practices affected firm performance and technical aspects. Table A7 (see Appendix A) mentioned the analysis of 28 studies [265][266][267][268][269][270][271][272][273][274][275][276][277][278][279][280][281][282][283] regarding green and sustainable operation management based on the author(s) names, year of publication scope and sample of study, area of study, number of sample, respondents, related theory, variables, study purpose, gap and research problem and results and outcome.…”