IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/corsem/v9y2002i4p215-233.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scoring corporate environmental and sustainability reports using GRI 2000, ISO 14031 and other criteria

Author

Listed:
  • J. Emil Morhardt
  • Sarah Baird
  • Kelly Freeman

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which current voluntary corporate environmental reports meet the requirements of two new sets of guidelines: (i) the Global Reporting Initiative GRI 2000 sustainability reporting guidelines and (ii) the ISO 14031 environmental performance evaluation standard. We converted them to comprehensiveness scoring systems then used them along with three existing comprehensiveness scoring systems to evaluate the 1999 reports of 40 of the largest global industrial companies. Many of the reports scored highly with the existing systems, but the GRI and ISO guidelines are much more detailed and comprehensive, and resulted in much lower scores. In particular, the economic and social topics that make up 42% of the potential GRI score and the environmental condition indicators that make up 22% of the ISO 14031 score were minimally addressed in all of the companies' environmental reports. Current reporting practices of the companies whose reports we examined here are well below the standards reflected in the GRI and ISO 14031 guidelines, even when the reports scored well with existing report scoring systems. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment

Suggested Citation

  • J. Emil Morhardt & Sarah Baird & Kelly Freeman, 2002. "Scoring corporate environmental and sustainability reports using GRI 2000, ISO 14031 and other criteria," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(4), pages 215-233, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:9:y:2002:i:4:p:215-233
    DOI: 10.1002/csr.26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.26
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/csr.26?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandra A. Waddock & Samuel B. Graves, 1997. "The Corporate Social Performance–Financial Performance Link," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 303-319, April.
    2. A. Ghobadian & H. Viney & J. Liu & P. James, 1998. "Extending linear approaches to mapping corporate environmental behaviour," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 13-23, February.
    3. Minna Halme & Jyrki Niskanen, 2001. "Does corporate environmental protection increase or decrease shareholder value? The case of environmental investments," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 200-214, July.
    4. Ans Kolk & Seb Walhain & Susanne van de Wateringen, 2001. "Environmental reporting by the Fortune Global 250: exploring the influence of nationality and sector," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 15-28, January.
    5. Giovanni Azzone & Giuliano Noci & Raffaella Manzini & Richard Welford & C. William Young, 1996. "Defining Environmental Performance Indicators: An Integrated Framework," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(2), pages 69-80, June.
    6. Kathryn Jones & Tony Alabaster, 1999. "Critical Analysis Of Corporate Environmental Reporting Scoring Systems," Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(01), pages 27-60.
    7. Marie‐Josée Roy & Olivier Boiral & Denis Lagacé, 2001. "Environmental commitment and manufacturing excellence: a comparative study within Canadian industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(5), pages 257-268, September.
    8. Peter Dobers & Rolf Wolff, 1999. "Eco‐efficiency and dematerialization: Scenarios for new industrial logics in recycling industries, automobile and household appliances," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(1), pages 31-45, January.
    9. Stuart L. Hart & Gautam Ahuja, 1996. "Does It Pay To Be Green? An Empirical Examination Of The Relationship Between Emission Reduction And Firm Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 30-37, March.
    10. Amanda Ball & David L. Owen & Rob Gray, 2000. "External transparency or internal capture? The role of third‐party statements in adding value to corporate environmental reports1," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, January.
    11. Lucas Reijnders, 1998. "The Factor X Debate: Setting Targets for Eco‐Efficiency," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 2(1), pages 13-22, January.
    12. Forest Reinhardt, 1999. "Market Failure and the Environmental Policies of Firms: Economic Rationales for “Beyond Compliance” Behavior," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 3(1), pages 9-21, January.
    13. Peter A. Stanwick & Sarah D. Stanwick, 2001. "CEO compensation: does it pay to be green?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 176-182, May.
    14. Jennifer Howard & Jennifer Nash & John Ehrenfeld, 1999. "Industry codes as agents of change: responsible care adoption by US chemical companies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(5), pages 281-295, September.
    15. Douglas J. Lober & David Bynum & Elizabeth Campbell & Mary Jacques, 1997. "The 100 plus corporate environmental report study: A survey of an evolving environmental management tool," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 57-73, May.
    16. Frances E. Bowen, 2000. "Environmental visibility: a trigger of green organizational response?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 92-107, March.
    17. Alison Thomas, 2001. "Corporate environmental policy and abnormal stock price returns: An empirical investigation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 125-134, May.
    18. Daniel C. Esty & Michael E. Porter, 1998. "Industrial Ecology and Competitiveness: Strategic Implications for the Firm," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 2(1), pages 35-43, January.
    19. Giovanni Azzone & Raffaella Manzini, 1994. "Measuring strategic environmental performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 1-14.
    20. Patrick Ransom & Douglas J. Lober, 1999. "Why do firms set environmental performance goals?: Some evidence from organizational theory," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, January.
    21. Stafford, Edwin R. & Hartman, Cathy L., 1996. "Green alliances: Strategic relations between businesses and environmental groups," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 50-59.
    22. Cerin, Pontus & Dobers, Peter, 2001. "What does the performance of the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index tell us?," Sustainable Investment and Corporate Governance Working Papers 2001/1, Sustainable Investment Research Platform.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Idalina Dias‐Sardinha & Lucas Reijnders, 2005. "Evaluating environmental and social performance of large Portuguese companies: a balanced scorecard approach," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 73-91, March.
    2. Nazim Hussain, 2015. "Impact of Sustainability Performance on Financial Performance: An Empirical Study of Global Fortune (N100) Firms," Working Papers 1, Venice School of Management - Department of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.
    3. Elisabeth Albertini, 2014. "A Descriptive Analysis of Environmental Disclosure: A Longitudinal Study of French Companies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 233-254, May.
    4. Jean D. Kabongo, 2020. "The intellectual structure of the journal Business Strategy and the Environment: A 25‐year author cocitation analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 170-179, January.
    5. J. Emil Morhardt, 2010. "Corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting on the Internet," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(7), pages 436-452, November.
    6. Cerin, Pontus & Dobers, Peter, 2001. "What does the performance of the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Index tell us?," Sustainable Investment and Corporate Governance Working Papers 2001/1, Sustainable Investment Research Platform.
    7. Khaled Elsayed & David Paton, 2009. "The impact of financial performance on environmental policy: does firm life cycle matter?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(6), pages 397-413, September.
    8. William L. Smith & Yue Cai Hillon & Yanni Liang, 2019. "Reassessing measures of sustainable firm performance: A consultant's guide to identifying hidden costs in corporate disclosures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 353-365, February.
    9. Hayam Wahba, 2010. "How do institutional shareholders manipulate corporate environmental strategy to protect their equity value? A study of the adoption of ISO 14001 by Egyptian firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(8), pages 495-511, December.
    10. Wayne Fu & Che‐Ping (Jack) Su, 2021. "The implications of efficiency differences in sustainable development: An empirical study in the consumer product industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 2489-2504, July.
    11. Christian Schwens & Marcus Wagner, 2019. "The role of firm-internal corporate environmental standards for organizational performance," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 89(7), pages 823-843, September.
    12. Zhang, Bin & Lai, Kee-hung & Wang, Bo & Wang, Zhaohua, 2017. "Shareholder value effects of corporate carbon trading: Empirical evidence from market reaction towards Clean Development Mechanism in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 410-421.
    13. Symeou, Pavlos C. & Zyglidopoulos, Stelios & Gardberg, Naomi A., 2019. "Corporate environmental performance: Revisiting the role of organizational slack," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 169-182.
    14. Pontus Cerin, 2002. "Communication in corporate environmental reports," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 46-65, March.
    15. Olaf Weber, 2014. "Environmental, Social and Governance Reporting in China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 303-317, July.
    16. Yi Quan & Huiying Wu & Sihai Li & Sammy Xiaoyan Ying, 2018. "Firm sustainable development and stakeholder engagement: The role of government support," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(8), pages 1145-1158, December.
    17. Carmelo Reverte, 2012. "The Impact of Better Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure on the Cost of Equity Capital," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(5), pages 253-272, September.
    18. Scott J. Callan & Janet M. Thomas, 2014. "Relating CEO Compensation to Social Performance and Financial Performance: Does the Measure of Compensation Matter?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(4), pages 202-227, July.
    19. Shuangyu Xie & Kohji Hayase, 2007. "Corporate environmental performance evaluation: a measurement model and a new concept," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 148-168, February.
    20. Christoph Trumpp & Thomas Guenther, 2017. "Too Little or too much? Exploring U‐shaped Relationships between Corporate Environmental Performance and Corporate Financial Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 49-68, January.

    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:wly:corsem:v:9:y:2002:i:4:p:215-233. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1535-3966 .

    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.