INDICES OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF THE COMPАNIES FROM THE AUTOMOBILE SECTOR IN THE CONTEXT OF INTEGRATED REPORTING

Abstract

Until very recently business operations were most strongly motivated by the ambition to maximize financial return and the purpose of the corporate accounting statements was to present information mainly on the cash flow, the financial and the asset position, as well as the financial outcome of the company. The development of the world economy and the thereby arising positive and negative effects on society is not fully covered by conventional accounting and financial reporting system. The insufficiency of such information obstructs satisfying the information needs of various interested parties, resulting in growing expectations and pressure over the companies to accept not only the positive, but also the negative effect on their behaviour in the economic, environmental, and social aspect. All of the above prerequisites, along with the capital restriction the companies are facing, require a change towards an appropriate upgrade of traditional corporate reporting. This problem is particularly significant for Bulgaria, which, being a member state of the EU, is expected to apply all European Directives for implementation of environmental requirements essentially related to the transport sector. In addition, the country’s geostrategic position, through which territory 5 of the ten Pan-European transport corridors run through, makes the problems related to the development and the application of methodologies and the toolkit for covering, registering, and reporting the effect of transport companies’ activities (especially those in the automobile sector) on the environment, people, and society as a whole, particularly important. Integrated reporting is ready to face these challenges and to solve a significant part of the problematic fields, which, in complex with the data and the indicators, registered and accounted for by traditional financial reporting, can provide together, to a sufficient and full extent, the demand for information in the implementation of environmental policy on a national, local and global scale.