ABSTRACT
The meteoric rise in recent years in the number of companies producing separate environmental reports and environmental information in their annual reports and accounts reflects the growing concern many companies now have for the environmental degradation they inflict. Many companies have recruited managers to oversee corporate environmental affairs, have delegated environmental responsibilities to board members, and created environmental committees from a cross section of its departments. The Environmental Reporting Awards (ERA), founded in 1991 by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, has significantly improved the standard of environmental reporting in the UK. The objective of the ERA is to identify and reward innovative attempts to communicate corporate environmental performance, but not to report on good performance itself. The Awards scheme has proved influential in the development of corporate environmental reporting around the world, and has been mirrored in many other countries such as Denmark, Germany and Japan.
