Using a Formal Concept Analysis to Examine Water Disclosure in Corporate Social Responsibility Reports

Kleinman, Gary; Kuei, Chu‐Hua; Lee, Picheng

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3024565

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(43 reference statements)

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“…Similarly, Ref. [33] propose a scoring framework to assess the water risks of businesses through disclosures on sustainability reports. However, Ref.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The possibility to benchmark the performance of different water utilities is a relevant incentive towards the improvement in the quality of services; starting from the recent sunshine regulation, a performance assessment system is presented by [43]. The analysis presented in this article is based on an updated version of the Accountability Index (AI) proposed by [44] (see also [33,45,46]). It is a straightforward scoring system based on a four-level measurement scale:…”

Section: Scoring Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A New Framework for Assessing the Sustainability Reporting Disclosure of Water Utilities

2018

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Sustainability reporting is becoming more and more widespread among companies aiming at disclosing their contribution to sustainable development and gaining legitimacy from stakeholders. This is more significant for firms operating in a public services' context and mainly when supplying a fundamental public resource, like water utilities. While the literature on sustainability reporting in the water sector is scant, there is an increasing need to study the usefulness and quality of its sustainability disclosures to adequately inform the stakeholders about the activities of water utilities to protect this fundamental resource and general sustainable development. This article presents a novel assessment framework based on a scoring technique and an empirical analysis on the sustainability reports of Italian water utilities carried out through it. The results highlight a low level of disclosure on the sustainability indicators suggested by the main sustainability reporting guidelines (Global Reporting Initiative, (GRI), and Sustainability Accounting Standard Board, (SASB)); most companies tend to disclose only qualitative information and fail to inform about some material aspects of water management, such as water recycled, network resilience, water sources, and effluent quality. These findings indicate that sustainability reporting is mainly considered as a communication tool, rather than a performance measurement and an accountability tool, but also suggest the need for a new and international industry-specific sustainability reporting standard.

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“…Similarly, Ref. [33] propose a scoring framework to assess the water risks of businesses through disclosures on sustainability reports. However, Ref.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%