Environmental and climate mandatory disclosure: a paper tiger ? Evidence from France

Bénédicte Coestier (), Mathieu Bernard (), Fabienne Llense and Maxime Lucet
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Bénédicte Coestier: EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Mathieu Bernard: EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Fabienne Llense: EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: During the 2010s, mandatory disclosure of extra-financial information in France has been encouraged by five major laws passed to reinforce corporate social, environmental and climate responsibility of systemic actors, key to the transition process to a low-carbon, circular and sustainable economy. Whether these laws are paper tigers is of the utmost importance in understanding, notably, how firms disclose when disclosure is mandatory. Considering laws as linguistic formulations and their meanings, we provide a qualitative analysis of Universal Reporting Documents of some of the largest publicly traded French companies (CAC40). We demonstrate that this intense regulation period has fostered a common language, instilling an environmental and climate reporting culture. In addition, based on a variety of accountability profiles - responsiveness-oriented, controllabillity-oriented, and out-of-step firms -, we highlight diverse dynamics as to the appropriation of the successive laws, along with private and institutional standards.

Keywords: Mandatory disclosure; Accountability; Textual analysis; Environment; Climate; Law analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04776928v1
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