Does Better Company Reporting Deliver Better Environmental Performance?

This chapter examines the complex relationship between corporate environmental disclosures and actual environmental performance, addressing whether the significant growth in environment-related reporting over the past two decades has translated into meaningful improvements in corporate environmental practices. The authors explain how better disclosures might drive better performance (as a result of heightened external scrutiny from stakeholders and enhanced internal self-monitoring and management processes) but also identify significant barriers to this relationship (including misleading disclosures that may constitute greenwashing, stakeholders not valuing or effectively using disclosed information and reporting being seen as a compliance exercise). The chapter shows that mandatory disclosure requirements appear to be more consistently associated with performance improvements.