Environmental disclosures of palm oil plantation companies in Malaysia: a tool for stakeholder engagement

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the effect of the classification of origin country of institutional shareholder (domestic, developed and developing country) and its status on stock exchange (listed and unlisted) on environmental disclosure level in Indonesian companies.Design/methodology/approachThe data set comprises 474 non-financial firms listed in Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) for the period of 2017 to 2019. The study uses an environmental disclosure checklist to measure the extent of environmental disclosure in companies’ reports. Panel regression analysis technique is adopted to investigate the association between total percentage of shares held by institutional shareholders based on the classification of origin country and the status in stock exchange, and the extent of environmental disclosure.FindingsThe study reveals that the extent of environmental disclosure is positively and significantly associated with institutional investors from domestic, developed countries, listed and unlisted institutional investors. Further analysis shows interesting results that institutions from developing countries have a negative and significant relationship with environmental disclosure in non-sensitive industries.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors recognize the issue of authors’ subjectivity in the measurement process of environmental disclosure. The sample for this study encompasses Indonesian listed firms. Thus, the results may not be generalized to Indonesian unlisted firms and other countries or regions.Practical implicationsThis study suggests managers to engage more with institutional shareholders because they have greater concern for environmental disclosure practices. The current study also suggests managers to make strong environmental policies as they are important to ensure that institutional shareholders’ investments are safe.Social implicationsGiven the positive impact institutional shareholders have on the level of environmental disclosure, it indirectly indicates that institutional shareholders have a strong motivation to make the world a better place.Originality/valueThis study offers in-depth insights into the effect of institutional ownership on environmental disclosure based on the classification of origin country and listing status of institutional investors.

The Southeast Asian haze: The quality of environmental disclosures and firm performance

Can we live within environmental limits and still reduce poverty? Degrowth or decoupling?

\nRisk reporting is essential in notifying investors on how companies manage the risks they engage in. Even though companies nowadays release information through press releases, corporate websites, and other forms of communications, they still have to disclose more information in their annual reports. The objective of this study is to examine the determinants of voluntary risk disclosures of Shariah compliant companies (ShCCs) in Malaysia, focusing on the religiosity factor and the ownership structure. A quantitative analysis using secondary data was employed as a method to assess the annual reports of 116 Shariah compliant companies in Malaysia for the financial years of 2012 and 2013. The findings of this study reveal that the voluntary risk disclosures in ShCCs on average are not more than sixty per cent. This study indicates no relationship between the religiosity of board members and directors’ ownership to the level of voluntary risk disclosure. More importantly, this study finds the relationship between the existence of government ownership and voluntary risk disclosure in ShCCs. The study adds value to the current body of knowledge in voluntary risk disclosures and suggests the importance of risk management information in the annual reports of ShCCs as Malaysia grows as a leading country in the Islamic economy.\n

Using the resource-based view theory (RBVT) as the underlying theory, this study has aimed to determine the extent of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures and specifically, to identify the factors that influence the extent of ESG disclosures by Malaysian companies. An index which is known as the modified environmental, social, and governance index (MESGi) was developed to measure the extent of ESG disclosures in the annual reports and sustainability reports of the 67 top Malaysian public-listed companies for the year 2015. The study used hierarchical regression to analyse the relationships between firm internal factors and ESG disclosures. The findings indicated that the extent of ESG disclosures by Malaysian companies was low. The results found that the ISO certification and research and development expenditure had moderate significant relationships with the extent of ESG disclosures by Malaysian companies. The government and policy makers may consider enhancing the existing regulations by requiring the listed companies to provide more ESG disclosures to the stakeholders. It is hoped that the MESGi is able to assist the Malaysian Government to have a more comprehensive and standardised guideline in disclosing ESG information by Malaysian companies.

The company's activities cannot be separated from its impact on the environment. Company activities can have an impact on the environment so that the company is not only faced with profit but also pay attention to the environment in carrying out its activities. However, companies often ignore the environment in their activities. This study aims to provide empirical evidence about the factors that influence the Environmental performance and environmental disclosure in the mining companies that are listed in Indonesian Stock Exchange for the period 2012 to 2016. The variables used are financial performance including liquidity, profitability, and leverage to determine the impact towards environmental performance and environmental disclosure. The method used is the SEM-PLS (Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Square) approach with path estimation. The results show that profitability, liquidity, and leverage have a significant effect on environmental performance and also show environmental performance has a significant effect on environmental disclosure. These results are expected to provide additional information about factors that influence environmental performance and environmental disclosure in companies listed in the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the mining sector and provide information for academics research for the development of the capital market.

Purpose – The objective of the present study is to examine the extent, quality, nature and trends of environmental disclosures of Malaysian property development companies for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006.Design/methodology/approach – A content analysis was undertaken of the annual reports of a sample of public listed property development companies in Malaysia for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. The content analysis examined extent, nature and quality of disclosures, utilising number of sentences for extent and the Clarkson et al. disclosure index for nature and quality.Findings – Malaysian property development companies do not appear to respond to the increased public concern due to recent landslide incidents by increasing the extent or quality of environmental disclosures in their annual reports. Both extent and quality of environmental disclosures are very low and most companies provide mostly “soft” disclosures. They also make very few “hard” disclosures, comprising objective, verifiable data. Thus, th...

Review: Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries By Uday Desai (Ed.) Reviewed by M. Tayyeb Javed Islamabad, Pakistan Uday Desai (Ed.). Environmental Politics and Policy in Industralialized Countries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. 403 pp. ISBN 0-262-54137-8 (paperback, alk. paper). US$25.00 To protect the scenic beauty of our global village from environmental degradation by high-production and high-consumption lifestyle (mostly in developed and partially in developing countries) for ourselves and for future generations, it is the duty of every human and nation to take an active role in environmental protection. Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries, edited by Uday Desai, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and the editor-in-chief of Policy Studies Journal, presents the environmental policies and their causes, consequences, and effectiveness in seven major industrialized nations: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Australia and Japan. Comprised of contributions by eminent social and political scientists (Uday Desai, Michael E. Kraft, Glen Toner, John McCormick, Helmut Weidner, Rudolf Lewanski, Angela Liberatore, K. J. Walker, and Jeffrey Broadbent), this work is an excellent collection for sociologists, political scientists, public administrators, engineers, and doctors (indeed, anyone who is engaged in fighting environmental pollution) to understand the environmental policy and politics in these seven major industrialized countries. The book is divided into nine chapters, The first is an introduction to the book's content and the last is a summary and conclusion on three basic concerns: when and how the state has intervened to protect the environment, the role of the institutions, and the effectiveness of intervention in the examined countries. The remaining seven chapters deal with each of the seven individual countries. The contents of these chapters are presented with a common framework. Each chapter describes the history of environmental problems and policies, discusses the environmental policy process, and concludes with a discussion of policy performance. Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries is an excellent guide for developing countries to monitor environmental problems and to formulate policies and assess their effectiveness. Of great importance to research is the solidly referenced statistical profile that includes land,

ABSTRACTAs pollution emitters and energy users, firms are important causes of environmental problems, making it increasingly vital for them to strengthen their environmental management and information disclosure policies. However, firms doubt whether it pays to be green and whether it is worthwhile to disclose their environmental information, and there are hot debates on these questions in the literature. This paper analyzes the relationships among corporate environmental performance, environmental information disclosure, and financial performance in China, which witnessed rapid growth at the price of environmental degradation. With 950 observations from 475 Chinese listed companies between 2013 and 2014, we find a U-shaped nonlinear relationship between corporate environmental performance and environmental disclosure, an insignificant relationship between environmental performance and financial performance, and a negative relationship between environmental disclosure and financial performance, which is different from most findings in developed countries. The aforementioned results imply that Chinese firms have few motivations to disclose environmental information or improve environmental performance; therefore, mandatory disclosure of environmental information is necessary, and proper environmental policy should be made to punish environmental violations and encourage better environmental performance.

PurposeOver the past few decades, accounting research has received considerable attention from academics and researchers in an effort to understand and interpret accounting events in firms. Environmental disclosure research is featured in those studies because of its effect on the number of groups within society where companies operate. Therefore, many studies, especially in developing countries, have been conducted in order to interpret and reach an understanding of the determinants of disclosure in companies through using accounting and social theories. In the Middle East and North Africa, a substantial number of accounting studies have been undertaken aimed at addressing the environmental disclosure in companies. The purpose of this paper is to examine these studies conducted in the Middle East and North Africa in order to establish an overview of the theoretical approach in the interpretation of the environmental disclosure in companies.Design/methodology/approachReview of studies of the environmental disclosure in the Gulf region and North Africa by focusing on a theoretical method that interpreted the environmental disclosure.FindingsStudies have shown a difference in the theoretical interpretation of the environmental disclosure with emphasis on the theory of stakeholder, the most common in such studies.Originality/valueThe value of this study is to add to the accounting literature in this area which, thus, is considered as a starting point for future studies on the most important theories used in the interpretation of environmental disclosure in the Gulf region and North Africa.

The enterprise's environmental disclosure mainly includes the disclosure of environmental protection, pollution prevention and cleanup, resource utilization and other financial or nonfinancial information concerning the environment. Its basic content includes the information of the environmental financial performance, the environmental qualitative performance and the main environmental accounting policy of the enterprise. The environmental financial performance disclosure can make use of balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and other major statements which are ruled by current financial system. The environmental qualitative performance can be disclosed by the existing disclosure tools or by compiling separate environmental qualitative performance report. The main environmental accounting policy can be disclosed by the enterprise's accounting statements through diagram or literal representation by convention.

The purpose of this study is to measure the level of environmental disclosure and factors influencing among plantation companies in Malaysia for year 2016 and 2017. There were lack of proper explanation and prior studies regarding environmental disclosure among plantation companies in Malaysia. A total of 43 plantation companies listed in Bursa Malaysia were used as sample in this study. This study found that a large proportion of the company showed low level of environmental disclosures. The highest score obtained for environmental disclosure was only 36 out of 45 items in disclosure index. This study found that firm size and firm leverage had a significant relationship with environmental disclosure in 2016, while profitability, board gender, board independence and board size did not have a significant relationship. Meanwhile, for 2017, firm size, profitability and board size had significant relationship with the dependant variable. The lack of information disclosed in the annual reports can be improved by development of regulations in improving the disclosure of environmental reporting.

Research aim: This paper aims at finding out the quality of environmental reporting and its association with company characteristics considering listed companies from various sectors through the lens of legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory in Bangladesh. Design/ Methodology/ Approach: Secondary data relevant to company characteristics and environmental disclosure have been collected from various parts of the annual reports of firms for the year 2016. This study considers one dependent variable breaking down into three levels and four independent variables. Level of environmental disclosure (LED) is the dependent variable while size, profitability, leverage and industry type are independent variables. Research finding: By employing Ordinary Least Square (OLS), the level of environmental disclosures (LED-1) is significantly associated with firm size, unlike the profitability, leverage and production attributes. The moderate disclosure level (LED-2) is likely to be affected by the firm size, unlike the other factors. Furthermore, the greatest disclosure level (LED-3) is to be strongly affected by business size and profitability. Moreover, the study confirms that firm type has no impact on environmental disclosure. Theoretical contribution/ Originality: This paper provides insights into the quality of environmental disclosure of Bangladeshi companies. It reveals that only leverage and size affect the total environmental disclosure of firms, unlike type and other features. This has a perfect alignment with the legitimacy theory that larger firms tend to disclose more to legitimise their activities and scale up their image. Practitioner/ Policy implication: This paper helps firms in implementing environmental disclosure policies and make them more environmentally responsible. Limitation/ Implication: Exploring the qualitative environmental disclosures among various types of industries in Bangladesh in a longitudinal manner by addressing more control variables may contribute to future research on determinants of corporate environmental reporting. Keywords: Environmental Disclosure, Company Characteristics, Bangladesh Type of article: Research paper JEL Classification: C01, C21

With the continuous development of China's economy, the problem of environmental pollution is becoming more and more serious. The formulation and implementation of environmental protection policies have greatly promoted the development of resources and industries. At the same time, resource development and industrial development play an important role in the formulation of environmental protection policies, and the two influence each other and complement each other. Generally speaking, the better the environmental policy, the lower the level of pollution and the better the state of the environment. As major factors affecting the state of the environment, air pollution and water pollution have a guiding role in the formulation of environmental policies. In this paper, we study the relationship between air and water pollution and each influencing factor, and establish a mathematical model to filter out the main influencing factors of each. This paper examines the relationship between air and water pollution and each of the influencing factors. Continuing the previous environmental policies, the development trends of air and water pollution in China in the next ten years are predicted.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the voluntary financial and environmental disclosures through the internet can be explained by the same determinants as in conventional reporting. Specifically, this paper examines the relationship between the extent of financial and environmental disclosures on the internet and six variables, namely, ethnicity of chief executive officer (CEO), leverage, level of technology, existence of dominant personalities, profitability, and firm size.Design/methodology/approachSix hypotheses were tested using data collected from 201 Malaysian listed companies on the Bursa Malaysia's Main and Second Boards for the financial year 2005. A regression model is utilized to analyze the results of this paper and this is in tandem with the previous studies.FindingsThe results indicate that level of technology, ethnicity of CEO and firm size are determinants of both internet financial and environmental disclosures. However, the existence of a dominant personality is found to negatively affect the level of financial disclosures but not environmental disclosures. The other variables did not show any significant relationship with either financial or environmental disclosures.Originality/valueThis paper investigates whether internet financial and environmental disclosures can be explained by the same determinants used in other similar studies. The results indicate that only level of technology, ethnicity of CEO and firm size are found to be significant for both internet financial and environmental disclosures.