Environmental reporting by large companies in Poland
Environmental reporting by large companies in Poland

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims to present the results of an analysis of corporate environmental disclosures in Poland. The research was conducted in large companies from five major industry sectors i.e. energy, pharma-ceutical and cosmetics, automotive, construction as well as electronics. Sixty firms were selected from the ranking list of 500 companies, published every year by the weekly Polish magazine „Polityka”. This list includes the largest firms based on their net sales revenues. This study analyses the content of corporate environmental disclosures with respect to the following areas: forms of corporate environ-mental disclosures, environmental goals in the management system, external certifications, environ-mental policy, environmental activity measurement, description of a company’s previous environ-mental activity as well as environmental activity planning. Corporate websites with documents usually uploaded in PDF format were surveyed. Therefore, the research relied on the content of environmental information disclosed on these websites. The research shows that most companies reveal environ-mental information, but the form and range of the information vary. They are influenced by the sector to which the enterprise belongs and their negative impact on the natural environment. It is worth adding that the surveyed companies presented only the environmental information which they wanted, in particular, the data creating their environmentally friendly image. This mainly results from the voluntary status of environmental reporting in Poland and the lack of generally accepted environ-mental reporting standards in terms of contents and structure.

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