The content and disclosure of Australian corporate environmental policies

Studies of environmental disclosure levels in companies’ annual reports have shown an increasing interest in the environment. A major part of this interest has become the development of a corporate environmental policy (CEP). This study considers the relationship between CEPs of Australian public companies and subsequent reporting and disclosure related to that policy found in their annual reports. The results show that Australian companies are surprisingly behind other countries in environmental reporting trends, and there are some major differences between the content of their environmental policies and their disclosures. Of particular importance is the finding that while companies appear to be reporting on the environment internally, they place a low priority on providing environmental performance data to external parties.