BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Environmental disclosure is an emerging issue in the field of environmental management in Europe and the United States that is potentially important an important tool to progress the goal of sustainable development. Stakeholder demand for environmental information are resulting in more companies including environmental performance statements in their annual report or a stand-alone environmental report. Issues arising from the expansion of disclosure include the lack of standardisation, third party verification and the possible need to mandate disclosure to prevent its use as a public relations tool. This thesis examines disclosure from several spatial perspectives that link disclosure to wider issues in society. It generates a conceptual model of the factors encouraging disclosure and tests this model through an examination of disclosure practice in Singapore. The level and extent of disclosure was found to be low and even disclosing companies devote only a few sentences to environmental information in their annual report with no reporting of environmental impacts or bad news. A postal questionnaire survey and interviews with stakeholders found that the main reasons for the low disclosure were a lack of awareness, resources and low demand for environmental information from the public. The gap in disclosure, when compared with practices in Europe and the United States can thus be explained by the absence of drivers (factors which encourage or force companies to disclose) in Singapore and at the same time, the presence of filters (factors which deter companies to report) that discourage disclosure. Increased disclosure will depend on raising both companies and stakeholder awareness of environmental issues and the demand for environmental performance information from the companies. This is where the environmental groups, industrial associations and government have an important role to play in education, provision of disclosure guidelines and assistance and even financial incentives to encourage companies to be more open about their environmental performance. All these take time, but until that happens, environmental disclosure will remain at a low level.