Solid waste environmental disclosures of public companies in Brazil of environmentally sensitive industries

Abstract

This study is motivated by companies' obligations to submit environmental information on solid waste in 2010. The research question is as follows: how was environmental information related to the solid waste of public companies in Brazil of environmentally sensitive industries disclosed in 2010? The general method used to answer this question was an analysis of public companies in Brazil of environmentally sensitive industries about of solid waste environmental disclosures in 2010. The following specific objectives were set: (i) to propose a model to identify documents as solid waste environmental disclosures and (ii) to evaluate the level of environmental disclosure and correlate it with financial variables. An analytical model of the solid waste environmental disclosure (Waste-Ede) was constructed for data analysis, which combined the concepts contained in the Environmental Disclosure Evaluation model, national policies regarding solid waste (Federal Law. no. 12.305/2010) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (2006) guidelines. The results show that most companies did not publish a sustainability report. The non-probabilistic final sample included 86 companies. The results limited to this sample showed that companies are disclosing information on solid waste at the market level (according to the model), with a mean of 12.44 points, and that there was a significant correlation at the 95% level between the Waste-Ede index and the following financial variables: environmental investments, total assets, net equity and gross revenues. In conclusion, in 2010, public companies in Brazil of environmentally sensitive industries that were part of the study most likely complied with regulations because of pressure from investors, given that regulators had no power of enforcement.