Environmental issues and Financial Reporting Trends: Evidence from Serbia

Abstract

In this paper we investigate presentation of environmental issues in Annual Reports and Web Sites of companies operating in industries that highly contribute pollution of Serbia, such as energy, cement manufacturing, petrochemical industry and iron manufacturing. The challenges created by privatization of these companies make it imperative for companies in the above mentioned industries to continually improve their environmental reporting practices. Research was focused on examining the location, typology and current practice on environmental reporting of above mentioned companies using content analysis.

The results indicate that there is no systematic approach established by Serbian enterprises regarding environmental issues and environmental information is rarely included in financial statements but in a separate report or in a separate section of the glossy brochure.