ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE: A CROSS-COUNTRY ANALYSIS FROM EUROPEAN UNION PUBLIC COMPANIES
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE: A CROSS-COUNTRY ANALYSIS FROM EUROPEAN UNION PUBLIC COMPANIES

Summary/Abstract: One of the contemporary challenges related to climate change and effectively managing raw materi-als is to reduce resource consumption and the negative environmental impact while simultaneouslyincreasing the economy’s competitiveness. This requires that business entities change priorities andmove to a sustainable relationship focused on ecological, economic and social well-being. Due to thetransnational and global nature of the climate and the environment, actions in this area should becarried out at a supranational level. In European Union (EU) countries, successive directives areimplemented regarding environmental changes and the taxonomy for non-financial reporting. Thisforces public companies, as large public interest units, to produce adequate quality data reportingin the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) area, including the environmental (E) indica-tor and its components. The article’s purpose is to make a comparative assessment of the currentsituation and to consider the prospects for environmental data disclosure by public companies list-ed on the regulated markets of the EU, with particular emphasis on energy consumption, water,waste production, and CO2 emissions. The Refinitiv database was used to test the quality of theenvironmental indicators. Public companies listed on the leading stock markets in the 27 EU Mem-ber States were included. The research period covers 2012–2021. We focus on checking how manycompanies report environmental data in any given year, and those that present them for at leastone year, or for three, five, or ten years. The findings support the clear advantage of the quality ofenvironmental data disclosure in the ‘old’ EU Member States (which joined before 2004) comparedto the ‘new’ EU Member States. However, reporting on key environmental issues (water and energyconsumption, waste production, and carbon dioxide) is very incomplete.

• Details
• Contents