The willingness of South Africans to support more green reporting

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to establish the willingness of South Africans to support more environmental corporate reporting. A questionnaire was used in the empirical study. The views of three groups were obtained, namely the preparers of financial statements (directors of companies were regarded as such), auditors of financial statements and their users. Seeing that accountability was chosen as the uppermost reason for disclosure in financial statements, the views of users were regarded as most important. However, the views of the other groups may well become more important should environmental legislation or regulation of reponing be considered in future. In analysing the results it was found that there were few cases of significant difference of opinion between the three groups. The preparers, auditors and users of financial statements were generally quite positive about more environmental corporate reporting. They were even in favour of making such disclosure compulsory.