The Economic Consequences of Voluntary Environmental Information Disclosure

A significant body of accounting and finance literature has witnessed an increase in the demandfor company’s environmental information over the past few decades. Using data of Australian companiesfrom 1998 to 2000, this study provides an analysis of environmental disclosure in companies’ annual reports.The evidence indicates that companies do respond to the increased demand for environmental disclosure byproviding more environmental-related information in their annual report. Although the requirement todisclose environmental information in annual reports has not kept pace with the legislative reform, there hasbeen a significant increase of these disclosures from 1998 to 2000. We also find that most of the disclosuresare covered in the Director’s Report across industries. This paper also evaluates the economic consequencesof these disclosures. The importance of the environmental disclosures to the value of the company isexamined by investigating the relationship between the environmental information disclosed in the annualreport and the company’s share price.