Environmental reporting: The UK water and energy industries: A research note

Last year the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) released a new set of revised guidelines upon environmental reporting practices for U.K companies. Two industrial sectors were selected - the Water industry and the Energy industry - and the most recent Environmental Reports produced by companies in these sectors were subjected to content analysis where the coding framework was heavily based on the DEFRA guidelines. Results are reported for the two industries separately and the two industries are also compared. Whilst sectoral differences were found it was clear that many companies addressed most of the issues raised in the guidelines. However, others did not. Whilst no conclusions can be made about the quality of reporting the main areas of emphasis in each sector can be determined