A STAKEHOLDERS VIEW OF ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING

In practice, environmental reports can range from a simple public rela tions statement to a detailed and in-depth examination of the company' s environmental performance, policies, practices and future direction. The central objective of any environmental report has to be to commun icate the company's environmental performance to the report reader. Th is article is based on the assumption that the vast majority of existi ng environmental reports are unable to satisfy all of the information requirements of the target groups for which they a re written. To try and rectify this situation the article first of all defines the differ ent audiences, or 'target groups', of an environmental report. The aut hors have then consulted with key representatives of each of these tar get groups and identified the most important issues that they want to see presented in an environmental report. This information is summariz ed In tabular form, and from these findings the article proposes two s eparate reporting strategies which companies may pursue for a more eff ective environmental report: (1) they can produce a 'generic report' c oncentrating on the key points which all target groups accept as being of primary importance; or alternatively (2) they can produce 'special ized' environmental reports which address all of the requirements of a specific target group. it is the authors' intention in this article t o provide companies with the information necessary to choose and then be able to undertake either of these scenarios. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd.