The Relation Between Environmental Performance and Environmental Disclosure: A Critical Review of the Performance Measures Used.

Abstract

As corporate environmental disclosure (ED) is the main source of information on corporate environmental performance (EP), it is important to know whether it gives a truthful picture of overall EP. In recent years, empirical studies have found contradicting evidence regarding the relation between EP and ED, supposedly due to EP measurement inconsistencies. Hence, the aim of this critical literature review is to scrutinize the EP measures that have been used in prior EP-ED studies. Two streams of literature are reviewed. First, in order to find out what is considered a conceptually sound EP construct, the conceptual EP measurement literature is analyzed. Three types of EP are identified: (positive) process-based measures, and (positive and negative) outcome measures. During the second step, all empirical studies on the EP-ED relation were reviewed, and all of the applied EP measures classified under one of the EP types. The following pattern emerges: Positive EP measures result in positive EP-ED associations, negative measures result in a negative relation, and aggregate measures lead to mixed results. Also, environmentally sensitive companies consistently disclose more extensively than their counterparts, and the two EP dimensions tend to be positively correlated. Taken together, these results infer that EP is a determinant of ED only to the extent that it reflects organizational visibility. This study shows how acknowledgement of the multidimensionality of EP, and the positive and negative nature of the corresponding EP measures, underlies some of the theoretical incongruity in the field of EP-ED studies.

Keywords: environmental disclosure, corporate environmental performance, performance measurement, sustainability reporting, literature review