ABSTRACT
Mexico's main reporting precedent is a toxic pollution disclosure law, an adaptation of a US community ‘right-to-know’ model that requires polluting companies to measure and report emissions of substances listed on a governmental register of 104 chemicals going into the air, water and land. Corporations have come under pressure to convincingly communicate their environmental and social actions to an expanding web of stakeholders. Aware that secrecy almost always backfires, many corporations are making environmental and social disclosures in ways and to audiences that would have been unthinkable in the past. While transparency is no guarantee of a quiet corporate life, in this high-exposure era, secrecy almost always backfires, especially in environmental and social arenas. The nature of non-financial reporting has changed over the past decade complementing a previous focus on environmental issues with a broader ‘sustainability’ approach that includes environmental, social and economic information.
