Meta-Regulation for Environmental Monitoring and Corporate Sustainability Reporting

Abstract

The environmental reporting process needed to obtain government permission has evolved into private sustainability reporting, but no clear regulations exist to mandate the structure and guidelines for these corporate sustainability initiatives. This chapter explores how sustainability reporting in concert with other disclosure mechanisms can be controlled by more precise metrics through the use of meta-regulation. Corporate sustainability reports are similarly situated with corporate securities and financial statements in terms of their intended audience; shareholders, but unlike those reporting requirements sustainability reporting has typically suffered from a lack of standardization. This lack of any cohesive regulatory framework minimizes the effectiveness of corporate environmental reporting.