Bank sustainability disclosures: A case study of Maybank

Abstract

In the past, corporate disclosures were mainly on the companies’ financial/economic performance (Deegan, 2009). However, today, an increasing number of companies are also disclosing on their environmental performance and social performance. Corporate sustainability disclosures, that is, disclosures on the economic performance, environmental performance and social performance of companies in their corporate reports enable report users to evaluate the sustainability performance of companies. Prior research studies on sustainability disclosures of companies in Malaysia have mainly examined environmental disclosures with extension to Islamic sustainability disclosures. This research study builds on extant literature by examining sustainability disclosures in the commercial banking sector, by using the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines and Financial Services Sector Supplement. The sustainability report of Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank) – the only bank that prepared the sustainability report according to GRI’s requirements – was examined. The results show that Maybank made a high level of sustainability disclosure. Besides, their GRI Content Index has several useful features: location of comments; whether an item of disclosure was fully, partially or not reported and the reason for the partial or non-disclosure. It is recommended that banks in Malaysia use a common sustainability reporting framework (such as the one developed by the GRI) so that their sustainability disclosures are consistent and comparable