Corporate Environmental Disclosures in a Developing Country: An Investigation on Turkish Listed Companies

Environmental information disclosure has been received special attention from both academic researchers and companies due to the increasing awareness of environmental issues worldwide. However, there is little empirical evidence on the environmental information disclosure practices in the developing countries. In this context, this study contributes to the existing literature by investigating the status of the environmental disclosures of companies operating in a developing country, Turkey. Our sample consists of 62 non-financial firms listed on the BIST-100 index in the financial year 2011. The annual reports of sample firms for the years of 2010 and 2011 are analyzed through content analysis, which is widely used in the research of this topic. Although there is a decrease in the proportion of companies that disclosed environmental information from 2010 to 2011, we found that there is a significant increase in the level of environmental disclosure by Turkish listed companies. The results of the study also show that Turkish companies disclose mostly narrative information and the level of disclosure of environmental information varies across sectors.