Environmental Accounting Disclosure Practice of Nigerian Quoted Firms: A Case Study of Some Selected Quoted Consumer Goods Companies

Abstract

In Nigeria, disclosure of environmental accounting information in annual report of companies is voluntary as there are no accounting standards or regulatory and statutory guidelines that mandated such disclosures, companies adopt disclosure as a result of good industrial practice, pressure from environmental activist and advocates and relationship with parent company. This study analyzed environmental accounting disclosures practices of Nigerian quoted firms and see how it varies from one company to another since there are no mandatory disclosure guidelines. A sample of 8 quoted companies was selected out of 19 consumer goods companies listed on the Nigerian stock exchange. Content analysis was used to obtain data from published annual reports of 2013 of the selected firms. And the data obtained were analyzed using one way analysis of variance to test the hypothesis. It was discovered that accounting standards do not significantly influence environmental accounting disclosures the non-existence of the standard Leads to lack of uniformity in disclosure and variations obtained in testing the hypothesis. It is recommended that with the pressures companies are subjected to disclose every information about their operations, it would be proper if the international accounting standards setting body comes up with a uniform standard on how companies should disclose their environmental accounting information.

Keywords: Environmental Accounting, Disclosure, Standard, Consumer goods