Trends in environmental performance reporting in the Finnish forest industry

Abstract

<p>Previous content analyses of corporate reporting have typically focused on annual reports of one<br />reporting year of board samples. This paper focuses on one industry (the forest industry) and on its<br />environmental performance reporting over a 15-year period from 1998 to 2012. The aim of this research<br />is to analyse the reporting trends. The research is a case study of three Finnish forest industry companies’<br />reporting. Seven major trends emerged from the content analysis. For example, the companies report on<br />a massive number of indicators, focusing mainly on input and output indicators. Also, the number of<br />reported environmental performance indicators is decreasing in each indicator group. In addition, the<br />companies report on the environmental performance of their supply chain very little. This paper makes<br />two contributions. First, the decrease in the number of environmental performance indicators is highlighted;<br />the underlying reasons for the decrease should be researched further. Second, the paper pinpoints<br />the difficulty of obtaining a balanced view of environmental performance by looking at the<br />indicators alone, because these mainly focus on the inputs needed for production and on the unwanted<br />outputs caused (e.g. emissions and waste). This is an aspect that the report preparers should devote more<br />attention to in the future.<br /></p>