Characteristics of environmental reporters on the OM Stockholm exchange

Abstract

AbstractExternal validation of company environmental performance is normally based on corporate environmental reports, due to the lack of other information. Critics of these reports, however, claim that these are no more than public relations exercises, consisting mainly of wordy descriptions and glossy pictures. It is therefore important to turn the spotlight on the real character of the companies behind the reports. Fewer than 10% of the companies listed on the OM Stockholm Exchange, however, provide documented environmental reports on the Internet (DERI) annually. The highest DERI percentages are found among those industry sectors that began reporting some ten years ago. Data from the Dow Jones Country Index Sweden shows that DERI producers have an average market capitalization some six times greater than non‐producers. Moreover, the DERI producers emitted twice as much CO2 per turnover as the non‐DERI producers. The fact that less than half of the companies on the OM Stockholm Exchange presented CO2 emission data somewhat weakens the conclusions on emissions. The fact that 60% of the DERI producers could not provide complete CO2 emission data for their companies does say something concrete about the usefulness of current DERIs as a tool for externally determining company environmental performance characteristics. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.