The impact of corporate environmental reporting on customer-related performance and market value

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the potential benefits for firms that report more on environmental activities, with regard to two important categories of stakeholders: shareholders and customers. Design/methodology/approach: To avoid the endogeneity problem, the authors apply the system generalized method of moments approach by estimating the relationship between environmental reporting and firm performance with regard both to levels and first differences simultaneously. Findings: Based on the 120 largest publicly traded companies in France from 2007 to 2011, results suggest that shareholders interpret and perceive firms' environmental information disclosure differently than consumers. However, reporting on environmental duties is perceived favorably by both customers and shareholders for firms with better environmental performance. In the same way, an increase in the level of environmental reporting is valuable in terms of customer-related performance (i.e. sales growth and profit margin) and in terms of market value (i.e. Tobin's q) for firms operating in customer proximity industries. In a supplementary analysis, the authors found that, for reporting on climate change (a component of the combined environmental reporting index), positive customer and shareholder perceptions are acquired in particular through superior environmental performance and proximity to the final customer. Research limitations/implications: When reporting on their environmental duties, environmental performance and proximity to the final customers play a critical role for firms in obtaining the necessary support of key stakeholders. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to explore the difference between shareholders' and customers' perception of environmental reporting according to firms' environmental performance and to their proximity to the final customer.