Corporate climate‐related voluntary disclosures: Does potential greenwash exist among Australian high emitters reports?

This study examines the issue of greenwashing among corporate high emitters subject to government scrutiny. To do so, we investigate the relationship between the actual environmental performance, measured as carbon emissions, of companies subject to the Australian National Greenhouse Energy Reportin...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Business strategy and the environment Vol. 30; no. 8; pp. 3721 - 3739
Main Authors: Wedari, Linda Kusumaning, Jubb, Christine, Moradi‐Motlagh, Amir
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Chichester Wiley Periodicals Inc 01.12.2021
Subjects:
Business
Carbon
carbon emissions
carbon reduction
Climate
climate‐related disclosure
Companies
Disclosure
Emission measurements
Emissions
Emitters
environmental disclosure
Environmental management
Environmental performance
environmental policy
False information
Government agencies
Greenwashing
Indexes
NGER legislation
Political philosophy
Scrutiny
TCFDs
ISSN:0964-4733, 1099-0836
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This study examines the issue of greenwashing among corporate high emitters subject to government scrutiny. To do so, we investigate the relationship between the actual environmental performance, measured as carbon emissions, of companies subject to the Australian National Greenhouse Energy Reporting Act 2007 (NGER) and their climate‐related voluntary disclosures. To measure climate‐related disclosure, we construct a climate‐related disclosure index based on four prominent frameworks and score corporate report content against that Index. Using a sample of 150 companies with NGER emissions data for Years 2016 and 2017, a period that precedes the issuance of recommendations for disclosure by the Task Force on Climate‐Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), our regression results show a disappointingly low level of climate‐related disclosure by most companies. We also find a negative relationship between climate‐related disclosure and 1‐year lagged environmental performance among companies exhibiting a year‐on‐year rise in carbon emissions. That is, our findings provide evidence of potential greenwashing by poor environmental performers, presumably to change negative perceptions by stakeholders, as predicted by socio‐political theories. In contrast, we find no evidence of greenwashing among companies experiencing a year‐on‐year decrease in emissions.
Bibliography:Funding information
Swinburne University of Technology
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0964-4733
1099-0836
DOI:10.1002/bse.2836