Website communication capabilities and content related to environmental management: an empirical study of European production companies

Heiko Thimm*, Karsten Boye Rasmussen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingBook chapterResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Environmental management concerns are being made available at corporate websites. The websites disclose the organization's communication capabilities and content related to environmental management. The increasing momentum of the climate change debate, the rising interest of stakeholders in environmental issues, growing openness of corporations, the innovations in information and communication technology, and web presence being increasingly important are all factors likely to advance the environmental properties of company websites. This work contributes to the exposure of the current state of environmental disclosure through an empirical study of 154 websites of companies within the European production sector. The sample of companies include a group of very large companies with more than 10,000 employees and a group of medium-sized companies with 126 to 250 employees. The study revealed a surprisingly low general level of website display of communication capabilities and content related to environmental issues. Many companies are not yet taking part in environmental disclosure and openness. Furthermore, data confirmed that medium-sized companies are lagging behind large companies. Surprisingly, environmental certificates were observed at the websites of medium-sized companies almost to the same degree as at websites of large companies.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRole of circular economy in resource sustainability
EditorsPezhman Ghadimi, Michael D. Gilchrist, Ming Xu
PublisherSpringer
Publication date2022
Pages17-29
Chapter3
ISBN (Print)978-3-030-90216-2
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-030-90217-9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
SeriesSustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management
ISSN2194-0541

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