Strategies for Building Environmental Transparency and Accountability

Christina W. Y. Wong, Chee Yew Wong, Sakun Boon-itt and Ailie K. Y. Tang
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Christina W. Y. Wong: Business Division, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
Chee Yew Wong: Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Sakun Boon-itt: Department of Operations Management, Thammasat Business School, Thammasat University, Bangkok 10200, Thailand
Ailie K. Y. Tang: Lee Shau Kee School of Business and Administration, The Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-25

Abstract: How do nature-inspired enterprises be accountable to the natural environment formed? Natural environment is one of the basic elements of the business. Firms should be sensitive to environment, so they should develop environmental transparency and accountability. This paper develops a framework to understand how environmental transparency and stakeholder governance create environmental accountability, following an “action cycle” informed by four accountability criteria—identifiability, awareness of monitoring, expectations of evaluation, and social pressure. The paper analyzes the environmental transparency practices of 50 companies listed in the annual Best Global Green Brands report, the Global RepTrak 100, and The Climate A-List of the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project). The results show that exemplar firms improve the “what”, “how”, and “how much” factors in terms of environmental information to identify what will be disseminated to whom when the information follows the criteria of accountability, which allow stakeholders to effectively adopt a governance role. This paper provides a 2 × 2 matrix for firms and stakeholders to better understand how accountability leadership is driven by environmental transparency, stakeholder governance and accountability criteria. The practical implications of environmental transparency are highlighted, specifically in terms of strategies for building accountability to meet the growing expectations of transparency and accountability.

Keywords: environmental transparency; accountability; governance; information discloser (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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