An Empirical Investigation of the Extensiveness of Stand-Alone Environmental Reporting in South Korea

In contrast to most other countries, South Korea's Ministry of Environment has been providing substantial guidance for corporate stand-alone environmental reporting. Motivated by the existence of such support, we investigate the extensiveness of environmental disclosure for a sample of South Korean firms. Results show higher disclosure scores than those reported in other studies using the same scale. Further, South Korean disclosure is more extensive than that of a matched sample of comparable US companies. While conceding that disclosure extensiveness is not necessarily associated with higher quality, our results suggest authoritative guidance for stand-alone reporting may improve corporate environmental disclosure practices.