The Quantity and Quality of Environmental Reporting in Annual Report of Public Listed Companies in Malaysia

Business organisations are facing the challenge of disseminating environmental information asthe public concerns regarding these issues have increased. This study examines the environmentalreporting practices in the annual reports of 243 companies listed on the Main Board ofBursa Malaysia for the year 2005. Content analysis approach was utilized to determine thequantity and quality of the environmental information disclosure in annual reports. The resultsindicated that only 28% of the companies reported this information in their annual reports andmerely five sentences were dedicated for these reports. It was also revealed that the averagequality of environmental reporting per company is 3.24%. In addition, it was discovered thatlarger companies and companies in environmentally sensitive areas published more informationas well as provided higher quality disclosure. Additionally, it was also revealed that companieswith high level of quantity environmental reporting are also having high level of quality environmentalreporting. Copyright © www.iiste.or