The Environmental Disclosures Indexes and Firm Performances

Abstract

This study aimed to test the relationship between environmental disclosures indexes and firm performances. The samples were 340 listed companies in the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 2014, except for financial conglomerates, insurance firms, trust and mutual funds. The researcher adopted the content analysis method by counting the number of words disclosed in annual reports and calculating indexes to find the level of environmental disclosures. Return on Asset (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) were used to measure accounting performance, and Tobin’s Q was used to measure marketing performance. In addition, total assets, debt to equity ratio, debt to asset ratio, and industry type were used as control variables. By using descriptive analysis, the authors found that environmental policy and product impacts and environmental were the top and the second ranks of disclosure levels. Meanwhile, environmental financial information was the last disclosure rank. By using regression analysis, the study showed that disclosures of environmental policy and energy information indexes had a positive effect on accounting performance and marketing performance, respectively. On the contrary, disclosure of environmental management and auditing index had a negative effect on accounting performance and marketing performance. Hopefully, the findings of this study will be useful for developing environmental disclosures for listed companies in the Stock Exchange of Thailand.