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This study explores the extent of environmental management and reporting regulations in Nigeria, highlighting areas of inadequacies in regulatory enforcement and companies’ compliance. We approach the review within the context of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda (SDA).

This chapter is based on a systematic review of extant environmental regulations and academic literature.

The results show several inadequacies with respect to Nigeria’s environmental management and reporting regulations. We specifically note the changing environmental management and reporting landscape in Nigeria birthing several emerging mandatory reporting codes. We find that fragmented reporting regulations and inappropriate sanctions are responsible for the unsatisfactory compliance and disclosure level noted among firms in the country. Additionally, weak enforcement, funding limitations, unrealistic financial penalties, and general implementation deficits remain factors impeding effective environmental management practice in Nigeria.

This research provides insight into environmental management and reporting inadequacies in Nigeria, and the actions regulators and firm managers need to take on board to help the country actualize the UN 2030 SDA.

The purpose of this study is to measure the current level of corporate environmental reporting (CER) in the developing economy of Nigeria. This is with a view to drive the effort of firms towards improving on the present practice. An attempt is made to also determine the extent to which the level of CER differs on account of firm characteristics.

The study used data for the top 40 companies on the Nigerian stock exchange as of 31 December 2017 based on market capitalization. The annual reports, company website and sustainability reports were the major sources of data. The paper used descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance to analyse data.

Despite the attempt to explore multiple sources in obtaining environmental information, empirical evidence from the present study confirms that the level of environmental reporting is low; most companies report environmental issues through the website. It further found an association between CER and firm size.

The findings will be of interest to policymakers and regulators on the need to regulate environmental reporting. Thus, motivating firms towards better environmental performance in Nigeria.

The paper extends environmental reporting research in Nigeria beyond the use of annual reports. It captured environmental information reported through the website and sustainability reports. It provides information on the current status in terms of quality and content of information reported. Finally, it found that firm size is a contingent factor for CER in Nigeria.

Public concern for the natural environment has been one of the vital issues of discussion in recent decades across the globe. Individuals are now stressing the importance of the natural environment. In the context of developing countries, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) are well positioned to have powerful impact on the discharge of corporate social responsibility through the usual pressures and lobbies exerted by the NGOs and their various networks than any other stakeholder. This study examines the impact of NGOs on environmental reporting of quoted manufacturing companies listed on Nigerian Stock Exchange. Using simple random sampling technique, secondary data were collected from annual reports and accounts of 10 selected manufacturing companies spanning 2010–2019. Multiple regression technique was used to analyse data collected. The findings reveal that environmental reporting and corporate social responsibility costs do not have significant impact on ROA and NPM with p-value of 0.713 and 0.612 at 5% level of significance, respectively, but both variables have positive significant effect on ROA. This means that the fund committed to environmental cost by these selected firms does not reflect on their profitability for the period reviewed. Based on this, it was recommended that as a matter of urgency for international Environmental NGOs should collaborate with local ones in achieving environmental friendly society. Similarly, United Nations should channel more funding on environment-focused NGOs because environmental issue is one of the cardinal points to be achieved by Sustainable Development Goals.

This paper aims to examine the effect of ownership structure variables on social and environmental disclosure practice in Nigeria. The paper also investigates the moderating impact of intellectual capital disclosure on the relationship between ownership structure elements, social and environmental disclosure.

The paper adopted the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) disclosure framework to extract social and environmental disclosure information from corporate social and environmental reports of 80 companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The study spanned from 2012–2017. Management ownership, foreign ownership, block ownership and dispersed ownership are considered as determinants of social and environmental disclosure. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the relationships specified in the study.

The result of the descriptive analysis has shown evidence of a low-level disclosure of social and environmental information in corporate reports (annual reports and corporate social and environmental reports) of companies. From the regression analysis, block ownership, foreign ownership and dispersed ownership are found to enhance the disclosure of social and environmental information in the corporate report of companies. However, management ownership was found to be insignificantly related to social and environmental disclosure. The result also revealed that intellectual capital disclosure has a significant positive effect on the relationship between management ownership, foreign ownership and dispersed ownership, social and environmental disclosure. However, intellectual capital disclosure does not moderate the relationship between block ownership, social and environmental disclosure.

This paper is the first to empirically examine the moderating effect of intellectual capital disclosure on ownership structure variables, social and environmental disclosure. The result of the study offer researchers a better understanding of the impact of ownership structure variables on social and environmental disclosure. The findings are useful to researchers, corporate managers, policymakers and regulatory bodies.

The study examined voluntary disclosure of contributions towards SDG-6 achievement by premium board companies in the Nigerian Stock Exchange. It employed a qualitative research design in which data were collected from the sustainability/annual reports of these companies and subjected to content analysis. The analysis shows overall poor quality as the disclosures are not linked to indicators that can help measure the extent of meeting the UN set target for SDG-6. Two tangible indicators disclosed are water use efficiency and construction of boreholes. However, there is no disclosure of the proportion of the population that gained access to clean water through these initiatives. Similarly, poor quality exists when compliance with GRI-303 on water information disclosure was assessed. The motivation behind the disclosures points to a continuation of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The objective is to gain a social licence to operate, and legitimation as opposed to signalling superior SDG-6 performance.

Over the last few decades, corporate environmental reporting (CER) has received substantial attention due to complex societal and ecological challenges experienced at a global scale. While there has been growth in CER research across the world, we know very little of the state of CER research in Africa. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive literature review of CER in sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate its current state, uncover gaps in extant studies and identify areas for further research in the region. We perform a metasearch on the Financial Times Top 50 journals in addition to wider analyses using African Journals Online (AJOL) and Google Scholar between 2008 and 2020. Though there is some progress in interrogating CER in the region, there is much leeway for further research into how public and private corporations provide an account for their interaction with nature. Extant studies have examined how CER is often subsumed within corporate social responsibility initiatives while other studies explore ways in which CER can provide accountability mechanisms in the mining sector of select countries. Important areas of future research include the influences of legal, cultural and political systems on the level of CER, the tensions between economic development driven by multinational corporations and the necessity for ecological protection. Finally, further research could investigate the role CER can play in encouraging specific corporate disclosures around GHG emissions, especially given global efforts being undertaken to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The issue that revolves around corporate governance and corporate environmental reporting (CER) has always been an essential element deliberated upon globally. A good corporate governance mechanism instills an investor’s confidence and ensures a transparent process that facilitates more disclosures and quality reporting. Precisely, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between corporate governance variables, namely, board size, board independence, board meeting (BM), risk management committee composition and CER in Nigeria. This study utilized the data obtained from the annual reports of 24 non-financial public listed companies in the Nigeria Stock Exchange comprising three sectors, namely, industrial goods, natural resources and oil & gas for the period of 2011–2015. The model of this study is theoretically based on agency theory. In analyzing data, this study utilized panel data analysis. Based on the Hausman test, the random effect model was used to examine the effect of predictors on CER. The result indicates a positive significant relationship between board independence and CER. Similarly, a positive significant relationship between BM and CER is revealed in the study. However, there is no significant relationship between other hypothesis variables and CER. Finally, the study provides suggestions for future research and several recommendations for regulators, government and accounting professional bodies.

The data was analysed using statistics.

The result indicates a positive significant relationship between board independence and CER. Similarly, a positive significant relationship between BM and CER is revealed in the study. However, there is no significant relationship between other hypothesis variables and CER.

There are no prior studies linking risk management committee with CER.

The study aims to evaluate the impact of corporate board gender on the energy disclosure with moderating effect of institutional strength (global competitiveness index) by the listed firms in Nigeria.

The study uses a sample of 49 non-financial firms listed on the floor of the Nigerian stock exchange commission for the period of five years (2016–2020). The study uses content analysis techniques to obtain data on environmental disclosure through the use of Global Reporting Initiative standards from the sampled firms. Random and fixed effect regression analyses were run for both direct and moderation models. Based on the results of the Hausman tests, random results were adopted and used in examining the relationship among research variables.

The study revealed average energy disclosure by the sampled firms. The overall results of the regression analysis found that board gender diversity is significantly related to energy disclosure. The institutional strength moderation result was found to have an insignificant impact on the relationship between board gender and energy disclosure.

The study is constrained by not considering all environmentally sensitive firms in the country. Furthermore, the study considered only gender among numerous important board attributes. Hence, other important board attributes should be assessed for better energy disclosure. Future studies should consider data from all sensitive firms and other board attributes.

Recently, the Nigerian Government mandates all firms to comply with environmental disclosure in Nigeria, this should be used as a way forward to encourage and compel all listed firms to improve their energy disclosure.

With diverse and vibrant women on boards, firms would benefit and gain legitimacy across demographic, ethnic and religious groups in the society. Hence, corporate bodies can effectively contribute toward enhancing the social welfare of various segments of society.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that provides empirical evidence on the effect of board gender attributes on the energy disclosure using institutional strength as a moderator in Nigeria.

This chapter investigates the relevance of sustainability accounting practice (SAP) in the actualisation of the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) 2030. Whilst the SDGs appear general, broad and far-reaching, the sustainable development agenda (SDA) impliedly places responsibilities on member nations to evolve strategies that will ensure the achievement of the SDGs in their respective countries in accordance with national circumstances and peculiar challenges. This brings to bear the need to consider measures to translate the SDGs to realities, especially in developing countries. We use a structured questionnaire to collect data on the application of SAP from publicly listed manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Secondary data on economic performance were obtained from the annual reports of companies for 5 years (2014–2018). Structural Equation Modelling and Mann-Whitney test were applied to analyse data. Result suggests that whilst the implementation level of SAP by companies is generally moderate, internalities/‘pull factors’ such as market orientation and deliberate strategy formulation significantly determine the sophistication level of SAP. The insignificant effect of the externalities/‘push factors’ (i.e. environmental uncertainty, structure of ownership and control, and intensity of competition) on SAP suggests that external pressure on companies to implement sustainability initiatives is weak. We also find that extensive usage of SAP can sustain economic performance in the long run. The chapter provides empirical evidence that manufacturing companies extensively implementing SATs can sustain economic performance and would likely have enough economic resources to implement some initiatives that are fundamental to the actualisation of the SDGs 2030. The chapter contributes to the sparse literature on sustainability practice in developing countries, and incrementally adds to knowledge on the factors driving SAP in a jurisdiction characterised by lax regulatory framework and weak institutional apparatus on sustainability. As evident in our findings, SAP engenders sustainable economic performance.

This study aims to develop a framework that enables the identification of sustainability factors from industry-specific environmental issues, and it proposes that these factors, in turn, can influence the corporate environmental performance (CEP) of firms in such an industry. It also validates the factor identification aspect of the framework.

The paper starts by reviewing relevant literature extensively and then developing an issue-based environmental sustainability framework to highlight the structural relationship of industry-specific sustainability factors with CEP. By involving 131 participants from academics in Niger Delta, the paper uses exploratory factor analysis techniques to reduce industry-specific sustainability factors from several environmental and socio-economic issues in the Nigerian oil and gas (O&G) industry.

Environmental risk originates from business environmental issues, and it triggers community reaction, which impacts negatively on corporate image. The nature of firm’s strategic responsiveness to these factors determines CEP.

The study draws from the perspectives of academics on environmental issues in Niger Delta to validate the factor identification aspect of the framework. The views of other stakeholders are not included, and hence, it should be applied with caution.

Useful in identifying and managing industry-specific environmental issues, and thus, achieving some sustainable development objectives.

Although most previous studies have focused on generic CEP drivers, this study proposes sustainability factors that can originate from industry-specific environmental issues as crucial drivers of CEP in such an industry. It provides empirical evidence of such credible sustainability factors emerging from the Nigerian O&G industry’s environmental issues.