Wise managers think about circular economy, wiser report and analyze it. Research of environmental reporting practices in EU manufacturing companies

摘要

Today, economic activity is predominantly characterized by a linear transformation of natural resources to production, consumption, and (ultimately) to waste. The Circular Economy (CE) seeks to overcome this by promoting reduction, reuse, recycling, and recovery, but its reflection in the environmental reporting of manufacturing companies remains unclear. By applying neo-institutional theory, we seek to explain how institutional pressures affect environmental reporting from CE perspective. Qualitative content analysis and statistical methods (ANOVA and PCA) were employed to provide original empirical evidence from 226 large manufacturing companies from different industries in the European Union. We found that manufacturing companies, as might be not expected, seek to legitimate their own position and actions by reflecting institutional logics that are centered on normative factors and best practices rather than legislative requirements. We believe this is an important observation particularly for the standard settlers and professional bodies as sustainability reporting guidelines and third-parties assurances may act as facilitators of translating circular business practices into companies' reports. The results obtained can also be applied to corporate decision-making processes regarding creating or redesign of environmental performance measurement and the improvement of external reporting. Practitioners can compare the prevailing profiles of CE environmental reporting in the analyzed companies with the disclosure strategies they are applying. By improving reporting on CE, manufacturing companies can gain more legitimacy among others, shareholders, employees and society as a whole. (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.