The Impact of Carbon Performance on Climate Change Disclosure

In the light of the significant role of environmental accounting in sustainable development, this study examines whether climate change disclosure reflects a firm's environmental performance. The novelty of the study stands on the approaches adopted to describe environmental performance. The first approach concerns performance in terms of output, direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, while the second one is based on environmental intention of mitigating climate change, including climate change policy and emission reduction initiatives. The Climate Performance Leadership Index is employed as a measure for climate change disclosure level, incorporating initiatives contributing to climate change mitigation, adaptation and transparency. Ordered logit regression is the appropriate methodology for the data employed concerning firms listed on FTSE 350. According to our findings, environmental performance for both adopted approaches entails a positive effect on climate change disclosure, a result that is consistent with voluntary disclosure theory. It is inferred that firms cannot manipulate their information reflecting their actual environmental performance and adopting a forthright and factual attitude towards sustainable development. Finally, findings provide an insight into managers' strategic behavior towards climate change issues. Copyright (c) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment