Over the past few years, concern about the issue of environmental sustainability
has increased considerably. Closely linked to this concern is the growing disquiet
over the increasing pervasiveness of multi-national companies, especially oil
companies, in shaping global politics and economics. Consequently, increased
awareness about the environment has led to calls for better management of global
resources and for ways in which to make the corporations that benefit the most
from the exploitation of these resources, more socially accountable and
environmentally responsible.
The oil industry continues to be at the centre of this debate. Despite the industry’s
immense contributions to society, it is regarded as a multi-national company with
a questionable record of environmental sustainability practices and a low level of
accountability and transparency. In an attempt to respond to these criticisms, oil
companies are now producing corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports;
voluntary reports containing disclosure about their social and environmental
sustainability activities.
Against a theoretical background in which reasons were adduced to explain the
motivation for the voluntary corporate disclosure phenomenon and a discussion of
the oil industry’s pivotal role in the environmental sustainability debate, this
dissertation evaluated the quality of the environmental CSR disclosure contained
in the annual report of thirty- four multinational oil companies. The evaluation was
benchmarked against the environmental reporting requirements of the Global
Reporting Initiative (GRI), the only internationally recognised CSR reporting
standards. In addition, using regression analysis, this dissertation considered the
impact of selected corporate characteristics on the quality of individual corporate
environmental report. Finally, the dissertation looked at the corporate governance
implications of the quality of the industry’s environmental reporting