23 • 1

CHAPTER

23

CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL

AND SOCIAL REPORTING

Carol Adams

Monash University

Geoffrey Frost

University of Sydney

Sidney J. Gray

University of New South Wales

CONTENTS

23.1 Introduction 1
23.2 Environmental Reporting 1
(a) Reporting Regulations 1
(i) United States 2
(ii) Australia 2
(iii) Denmark 3
(iv) Netherlands 4
(v) Norway 4
(b) Overview of Regulations 5
(c) Voluntary Guidelines 5
(d) Voluntary Disclosures 5
23.3 Social and Ethical Reporting 7
(a) Regulations 7

(b) Guidelines 8

(c) Disclosures 10

(i) General 10

(ii) Equal Opportunities 14

(iii) Community 15

(iv) Verification 16

23.4 Sustainability/Triple Bottom Line

Reporting 16

23.5 Summary 20

SOURCES AND SUGGESTED

REFERENCES 22

23.1 INTRODUCTION. This chapter is concerned with the public reporting of en-
vironmental and social information—this may be disclosure within the annual report,
a special environmental (or other titled) report, or on the company Web page. The
predominant feature is that it is reporting by the company targeted to the general
users of such information, and is not specific reporting to regulators on a specific
issue. For example, there are mandatory reporting guidelines such as the Toxic Re-
lease Inventory (TRI) in the United States. Such reporting is not covered in this chap-
ter because it is reporting for a specific regulator and was not initiated to improve re-
porting to the general public.

23.2 ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING

(a) Reporting Regulations. Until recently, disclosure on environmental performance
has been predominantly a voluntary undertaking that on occasion fell within the ju-