Environmental Reporting, Between Strategic Management and "Greenwashing"?

Environmental reporting as part of Corporate Social Responsibility reporting (CSR) is one of the governance tools increasingly used by companies to measure, analyse and communicate on their ecological information. The rules and standards governing their environmental reporting are in constant evolution. They provide a framework for companies to consider non- financial aspects as business opportunities and consequently to integrate them into their strategic management via virtuous practices, which make possible the creation of value in a range of forms such as economic and financial, intellectual and productive as well as social and environmental. However, as a genuine communication tool which is published and made available to external stakeholders, environmental reporting may also contain “greenwashed” information. The objective of this paper is to analyse the environmental reporting of French companies quoted on the CAC 40 and to assess the meaningfulness of their published information. The results of the study show that companies have developed a range of practices to improve their environmental performance as shown in their reporting. Some can be classified as practices aiming at internalising environmental externalities, while others lead to a phenomenon of "externalisation" of those externalities (e.g. sub-contracting or rental). It demonstrates the need to make the standards more precise, both in terms of the scope and even the objectives of reporting. This would involve developing a natural capital and ecosystem services accounting system. This article also reviews the different initiatives to integrate the value of nature in the accounting systems of both businesses (micro level) and countries (macro level) and their possible inter- linkages.