Abstract
This paper assesses the level of corporate sustainability disclosures in an environmentally-sensitive industry in Nigeria - the oil and gas industry. The paper aims to evaluate the extent of sustainability disclosure in the annual report’s oil and gas industries. The study retrieves secondary data on sustainability disclosure for 10 years (2010 - 2019) from eight oil and gas industries listed in the Nigerian stock exchange through a desktop approach and content analysis methodology. Content analysis of the sustainability disclosure is to identify items of sustainability disclosed in the annual reports. The paper assesses the extent of disclosure by adopting the global reporting initiative’s scoring index. Findings from the analysis indicate a very low-level climate change and environmental pollution disclosure. Only 13.8% of the companies disclosed their impact on climate change and environmental pollution. On the contrary, all the companies revealed their community investment, which this paper regards as legitimizing smokescreen ecological pollution. The paper contributes to the literature by connecting the legitimacy theory to the decoying sustainability disclosure of oil and gas companies in Nigeria. In conclusion, the study recommends more stringent sustainability disclosure policies for the oil and gas to provide more information for environmental and climate change advocates and investors in censuring the companies, which might instill improved environmental compliance. Keywords: Climate Change, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Governance Indicators, Oil and Gas, Renewable Materials, Social Indicators, Sustainability Disclosures JEL Classifications: M4, M14, M140, Q53, Q54, Q56, Q57 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.11095
Highlights
The environmentally-sensitive nature of oil and gas operations has prompted them to seriously consider their performance in financial terms and socially and environmentally
Based on the literature review, the current study developed the hypothesis: H1: Sustainability disclosures do not significantly differ over the periods in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry
Data and Variables This study population consists of 12 oil and gas companies from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as of August 2020 (Nigerian Stock Exchange, 2020)
Summary
The environmentally-sensitive nature of oil and gas operations has prompted them to seriously consider their performance in financial terms and socially and environmentally. Companies disclose and report aspects of their performance, which can pose risks to their operations and future obligations. Reporting on sustainability has become a task for companies’ corporate communications department to communicate how such companies respond to their environmental and social concerns. Corporate communication is crucial in reporting sustainability disclosures. In the view of Salvioni and Bosetti (2014), reporting on corporate sustainability is a means to inform stakeholders about corporate responsibility to its stakeholders. This implies that a company is responsible for its actions in three dimensions: environmentally, socially, and
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