Environmental Disclosures and Environmental Management Strategies – A study of Pakistani Listed companies

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to understand the environmental disclosure by listed companies of Pakistan in the light of legitimacy theory. Furthermore, it highlights the environmental management strategies pursued by them. This research used a content analysis research method to codify the reported information in the annual reports into the environment related themes. The data analysis results revealed that the sampled companies appear to give little importance to environmental issues. The companies which have disclosed mainly reported about ‘environmental pollution’, ‘energy’, and ‘conservation of natural resources’ themes; and provided declarative types of disclosure about them. As for as environmental strategies are concerned only a few non-financial companies have followed proactive environmental strategies and made real efforts to address environmental issues. These results seem to reflect that the companies have disclosed environment related information in the annual reports in order to legitimize their existence.