Are US electric utilities improving their sustainability disclosures and performance?

Abstract

This paper examines whether voluntary sustainability disclosures are associated with sustainability performance for a sample of 47 investor-owned electric utilities that disclosed SASB-consistent sustainability information in their SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) filings in the period 2014–2018. We collect sustainability performance indicators from company sustainability reports to determine whether companies with a good disclosure policy on a topic also have good sustainability performance on the given topic. Our findings suggest that the most frequent disclosures are grid resiliency, greenhouse gas emissions, and end-use efficiency while the least disclosed topics are energy affordability and nuclear safety. The data shows that companies that perform among the best on one sustainability performance measure may not be the best on other measures. Correlation analysis and mean difference tests indicate that there is no strong connection between sustainability performance and disclosure quality. Thus, the present strategy of voluntary sustainability disclosure may not be a direct indicator of actual sustainability performance.