An initial review of biodiversity reporting by South African corporates: The case of the food and mining sectors

Hafsa Mansoor,Warren Maroun

doi:10.4102/sajems.v19i4.1477

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine to what extent South African companies listed on the local stock exchange in the mining and food producer and retail sectors are including biodiversity-related issues in their integrated and sustainability reports. The study employs established biodiversity reporting frameworks for gauging changes in the frequency of disclosures from 2011 to 2013 and determining if biodiversity information is being included in either the integrated or sustainability reports of the companies under review. Consistent with the findings of a special edition of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ), the research finds few examples of detailed reporting on biodiversity issues. This is despite the fact that South Africa has a well-established code of corporate governance, a long history of including non-financial information in corporate reports and is an advocate of the integrated reporting movement. The study calls into question the sincerity of companies in the two sectors under review when it comes to providing balanced accounts of their management of non-financial capital as recommended by the country’s codes on governance and the International Integrated Reporting Council.

Highlights

Consistent with the findings of a special edition of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ), the research finds few examples of detailed reporting on biodiversity issues
This is done using a content analysis of integrated and sustainability reports and the disclosure frameworks provided by Van Liempd and Busch (2013), Grabsch et al (2012) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, 2007)
Content analysis is used to determine the extent of biodiversity disclosures found in the integrated and sustainability reports of companies included in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)’s mining and food producer and retail sectors

Summary

Introduction

Consistent with the findings of a special edition of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ), the research finds few examples of detailed reporting on biodiversity issues. What little research has been done on how organisations are dealing with these challenges finds that many companies in some of the world’s leading economies are marginalising biodiversity reporting (Grabsch, Jones & Solomon, 2012; Rimmel & Jonäll, 2013; Van Liempd & Busch, 2013) This is true even after the release of scientific evidence pointing to environmental catastrophe (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013 [IPCC], 2013) and the inevitable social, economic and political turmoil which will result. This means that they constitute a reasonable basis for carrying out the analysis in this paper and avoid the need to develop an alternate and subjective reporting typology which may not be directly comparable with prior studies

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion