Is environmental reporting changing corporate behaviour?

Abstract

Increasingly the business community is being asked to respond to growing societal concerns about the environment (Gray et al., 1996; O'Donovan, 2002; Raar, 2002; Adams, 2002, 2004; KPMG, 2002). One business response which has been widely researched from a number of aspects has been the development of standalone environmental reports (Brown and Deegan, 1998; Deegan and Gordon, 1996; Adams et al., 1998; Holland and Foo, 2003; Buhr, 1998; Cormier and Gordon, 2000; Deegan et al., 2000; Milne and Patten, 2002; O'Donovan 2002; Rahaman et al., 2004). However, one key aspect which has not yet been fully investigated is the impact of environmental reporting upon organisational activity (Dillard et al., 2004; Larringa-Gonzalez and Bebbington, 2001; Ball, 2007). Using an institutional theory perspective, this paper provides a framework for the examination of the embedding of environmental reporting structures into organisational processes and culture. Using this outline framework to analyse existing literature, the paper concludes that there are many issues about the impact of environmental reporting which are still unclear and that many of the attributes of the environmental agenda suggest that it could be another management fad.