IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fgv/eaerae/v62y2022i3a86104.html

Environmental disclosure level: A firms’ proactive or defensive posture?

Author

Listed:
  • de Souza Ribeiro, Maisa
  • Santana Santos, Edilene
  • Simões Ferraz do Amaral Fregonesi, Mariana
  • Maria dos Santos Cunha, Lucelma

Abstract

This paper investigated which theory best explains companies' motivation for environmental disclosure: the image theory (proxy: adherence to the Corporate Sustainability Index - ISE), or the legitimacy theory (proxy: materiality of provisions for environmental damage in the Balance Sheet - MatPA). Listed non-financial Brazilian companies with Environmental Disclosure Score (EDS) available on Bloomberg for the period 2010-2018 were analyzed. The panel data analysis indicated that among non-potentially polluting companies, ISE is significant to explain environmental disclosure and MatPA is not; among potentially polluting firms, MatPA is significant, but ISE is not. This suggests the coexistence of two antagonistic motivations for disclosure: the proactive strategy ofcreating value and differentiation through environmental disclosure prevails (image theory) in non-potentially polluting companies, whereas potentially polluters primarily adopt a reactive attitude toward disclosure, seeking self-legitimation with stakeholders after causing damage to the environment (legitimacy theory).

Suggested Citation

  • de Souza Ribeiro, Maisa & Santana Santos, Edilene & Simões Ferraz do Amaral Fregonesi, Mariana & Maria dos Santos Cunha, Lucelma, 2022. "Environmental disclosure level: A firms’ proactive or defensive posture?," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 62(3), July.
    • Handle: RePEc:fgv:eaerae:v:62:y:2022:i:3:a:86104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://periodicos.fgv.br/rae/article/view/86104
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fgv:eaerae:v:62:y:2022:i:3:a:86104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Núcleo de Computação da FGV EPGE (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eagvfbr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.