Environmental sustainability disclosure in Asian countries: Bibliometric and content analysis

Abstract

Stakeholders’ awareness of corporate social responsibility has increased, with governments, companies, investors, and consumers paying more attention to environmental sustainability disclosures. Asian countries contribute to the highest worldwide emission. Thus, sustainability disclosures become necessary because it provides transparency and effort of the corporation to the climate change and sustainability. This study aims to identify recent knowledge for the disclosure of environmental sustainability in Asian context by examining the literature in Asian countries from 2009 to 2021, trends, research themes, and directions for future studies using bibliometric and content analysis. As a result, 208 articles on environmental sustainability disclosure in Asian countries were extracted from the Scopus database and analyzed. The study finds that environmental sustainability disclosures related research in Asian countries can be clustered into five major themes, including: environmental disclosure, sustainable accounting and finance, corporate characteristics, sustainability governance, and sustainability reporting and performance. Research topic is shifted from the assessment methods of the disclosures to the integration of sustainability dimensions into the reporting system. Several factors are found to affect the decision of the corporation to disclose their environmental accounting. This study provides recommendations for future research based on the findings and evaluation of current research trends and themes.