Research Questions:

The previous research criticizes sustainability reports e.g. from the point of view that companies only report about the positive sustainability impacts and positive trends. This paper addresses the critics with the question: “Do companies report only good news in the sustainability reports?”

Theoretical Framework:

Main concepts of this research are environmental reporting and environmental performance measurement. A corporate environmental report (CER) is a tool of corporate environmental management (Kurki, 1999, Lober et al., 1997). A CER typically describes the results of the annual environmental management work (Kurki, 1999). Internally, it helps managers to organise the company’s environmental work (e.g. Kurki, 1999, Székely and Knirsch, 2005, Tregidga and Milne, 2006). Externally, a CER is used as a communication tool to inform the stakeholders about a company’s environmental performance (e.g. Azzone et al., 1997, Kurki, 1999, Marshall and Brown, 2003).

Reliable environmental impact information allows managers to make better decisions for the environment (Eagan and Joeres, 2002). Environmental performance measurement is needed in order to follow the development of environmental impacts and aspects, companies need to measure them (Jasch, 2000). Several different frameworks have been developed to facilitate the selection of suitable indicators for companies, such as ISO 14031 and the Global Reporting Initiative. In ISO 14031 (ISO 1999), environmental indicators are divided into environmental condition indicators and environmental performance indicators, which are further divided into management performance indicators and operational performance indicators. In GRI (2013), the environmental performance indicators include materials; energy; water; biodiversity; emissions, effluents and waste; products and services; compliance; transport; overall; supplier environmental assessment; and environmental grievance mechanisms.

Method:

This article focuses on the environmental reports of one branch of heavy industry, namely the forest industry. The three largest Finnish forest industry companies were selected for this study: Stora Enso, UPM-Kymmene and Metsä Board. All of the case companies are results of mergers, and are now multinational companies with their headquarters in Finland. These companies have a long tradition of environmental reporting, the earliest reports being published in early 1990’ies. In addition, each of these companies is an active promoter of different environmental certification schemes.

The analysis presented in this article was based on 15 years of environmental reporting of the case companies. For each year, the main environmental report was selected for analysis, so altogether 45 reports analysed. The reports were titled environmental reports, corporate social responsibility reports or annual reports.  

Content analysis was applied as a method in this research. The focus of the analysis was on the environmental performance indicators that the case companies used in their reports. Environmental performance indicators were understood here to be those environmental issues that companies give numeric or graphical information about in the reports. These indicators were sought from the tables and graphs. The body text was not analysed.

Findings:

In total, the companies reported during the time frame 2,686 environmental performance indicators. Out of these, 1,357 indicators report trends, i.e. give results from two years or more. These indicators are further divided into positive and negative news, and into positive and negative trends. Positive news addressed for example the application of certification schemes. Negative news covered emissions and waste. Positive trends, on the other hands, described that the companies have managed to decrease, for example, the amount of emissions that they produce, whereas negative news reported increases in the amount of emissions.