IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iuk/wpaper/2006-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Disclosure under Threat of Audit

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas P. Lyon

    (Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan)

  • John W. Maxwell

    (Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University Kelley School of Business)

Abstract

We develop an economic model of “greenwash,” in which a firm strategically discloses environmental information and a non-governmental organization (NGO) may audit and penalize the firm for failing to fully disclose its environmental impacts. We identify conditions under which NGO punishment of greenwash backfires, inducing the firm to become less rather than more forthcoming about its environmental performance. We show that complementarities with NGO auditing may justify public policies encouraging firms to adopt environmental management systems. Mandatory disclosure rules offer the potential for better performance than NGO auditing, but the necessary penalties may be so large as to be politically unpalatable. If so, a mix of mandatory disclosure rules, NGO auditing and environmental management systems may be needed to induce full environmental disclosure.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2006. "Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Disclosure under Threat of Audit," Working Papers 2006-07, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:iuk:wpaper:2006-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/RePEc/iuk/wpaper/bepp2006-07-lyon-maxwell.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lyon,Thomas P. & Maxwell,John W., 2004. "Corporate Environmentalism and Public Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521819473, December.
    2. Timothy J. Feddersen & Thomas W. Gilligan, 2001. "Saints and Markets: Activists and the Supply of Credence Goods," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 149-171, March.
    3. Mathias Dewatripont & Jean Tirole, 1994. "The prudential regulation of banks," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9539, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    4. Robert Innes, 2006. "A Theory of Consumer Boycotts under Symmetric Information and Imperfect Competition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(511), pages 355-381, April.
    5. Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2004. "Astroturf: Interest Group Lobbying and Corporate Strategy," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 561-597, December.
    6. Patten, Dennis M., 2002. "The relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: a research note," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 763-773, November.
    7. Tom Tietenberg, 1998. "Disclosure Strategies for Pollution Control," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(3), pages 587-602, April.
    8. Paul Milgrom & John Roberts, 1986. "Relying on the Information of Interested Parties," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 17(1), pages 18-32, Spring.
    9. Craig Deegan & Michaela Rankin & Peter Voght, 2000. "Firms' Disclosure Reactions to Major Social Incidents: Australian Evidence," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 101-130, March.
    10. David P. Baron, 2003. "Private Politics," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 31-66, March.
    11. David P. Baron & Daniel Diermeier, 2007. "Strategic Activism and Nonmarket Strategy," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 599-634, September.
    12. Hyun Song Shin, 2003. "Disclosures and Asset Returns," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 105-133, January.
    13. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, I: Theory," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 1-26.
    14. Clarkson, Peter M. & Li, Yue & Richardson, Gordon D. & Vasvari, Florin P., 2008. "Revisiting the relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: An empirical analysis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(4-5), pages 303-327.
    15. Patten, Dennis M., 1992. "Intra-industry environmental disclosures in response to the Alaskan oil spill: A note on legitimacy theory," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 471-475, July.
    16. Cho, Charles H. & Patten, Dennis M., 2007. "The role of environmental disclosures as tools of legitimacy: A research note," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(7-8), pages 639-647.
    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. Baron, David P., 2011. "Credence attributes, voluntary organizations, and social pressure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1331-1338.
    2. Elias Asproudis, 2011. "Revisiting environmental groups and members’ behaviour: budget, size and (im)pure altruism," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 13(2), pages 139-156, June.
    3. María Luisa Pajuelo Moreno & Teresa Duarte-Atoche, 2019. "Relationship between Sustainable Disclosure and Performance—An Extension of Ullmann’s Model," Sustainability, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 11(16), pages 1-1, August.
    4. Steven F. Cahan & Charl De Villiers & Debra C. Jeter & Vic Naiker & Chris J. Van Staden, 2016. "Are CSR Disclosures Value Relevant? Cross-Country Evidence," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 579-611, September.
    5. Patten, Dennis M., 2015. "An insider's reflection on quantitative research in the social and environmental disclosure domain," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 45-50.
    6. Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2008. "Corporate Social Responsibility and the Environment: A Theoretical Perspective," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(2), pages 240-260, Summer.
    7. Islam, Muhammad Azizul & van Staden, Chris J., 2018. "Social movement NGOs and the comprehensiveness of conflict mineral disclosures: evidence from global companies," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 1-19.
    8. Yang Stephanie Liu & Xiaoyan Zhou & Jessica Yang & Andreas Hoepner, 2016. "Corporate Carbon Emission and Financial Performance: Does Carbon Disclosure Mediate the Relationship in the UK?," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2016-03, Henley Business School, Reading University.
    9. Mohamed Chelli & Sylvain Durocher & Anne Fortin, 2018. "Normativity in Environmental Reporting: A Comparison of Three Regimes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 285-311, May.
    10. Erin M. Reid & Michael W. Toffel, 2009. "Responding to public and private politics: corporate disclosure of climate change strategies," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(11), pages 1157-1178, November.
    11. Jose-Manuel Prado-Lorenzo & Isabel-Maria Garcia-Sanchez, 2010. "The Role of the Board of Directors in Disseminating Relevant Information on Greenhouse Gases," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 97(3), pages 391-424, December.
    12. Kim, Eun-Hee & Lyon, Thomas P., 2011. "Strategic environmental disclosure: Evidence from the DOE's voluntary greenhouse gas registry," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 311-326, May.
    13. Erin Marie Reid & Michael W. Toffel, 2008. "Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies," Harvard Business School Working Papers 09-019, Harvard Business School, revised Jun 2009.
    14. Perera, Luckmika & Jubb, Christine & Gopalan, Sandeep, 2019. "A comparison of voluntary and mandated climate change-related disclosure," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 243-266.
    15. Patten, Dennis M. & Zhao, Na, 2014. "Standalone CSR reporting by U.S. retail companies," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 132-144.
    16. Michelle Rodrigue & Michel Magnan & Charles Cho, 2013. "Is Environmental Governance Substantive or Symbolic? An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 114(1), pages 107-129, April.
    17. Michelon, Giovanna & Pilonato, Silvia & Ricceri, Federica, 2015. "CSR reporting practices and the quality of disclosure: An empirical analysis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 59-78.
    18. Jean-Noël Chauvey & Sophie Giordano-Spring & Charles Cho & Dennis Patten, 2015. "The Normativity and Legitimacy of CSR Disclosure: Evidence from France," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(4), pages 789-803, September.
    19. Emerald Edem Welbeck & Godfred Matthew Yaw Owusu & Rita Amoah Bekoe & John Amoah Kusi, 2017. "Determinants of environmental disclosures of listed firms in Ghana," International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 1-12, December.
    20. Elizabeth Stanny, 2013. "Voluntary Disclosures of Emissions by US Firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 145-158, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iuk:wpaper:2006-07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Rick Harbaugh). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/dpiubus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.