An investigation of environmental, social and governance measures of listed mining sector companies in Australia

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to determine the extent of ESG reporting and to determine the nature and type of ESG indicators used to report ESG disclosures of listed mining sector companies in Australia. The study was conducted with secondary data collected from integrated or sustainability reports of Top 100 Companies in the Diversified Metal and Mining Sector for the year 2013. A pilot study was conducted with 12 companies which were top end of market capitalisation and compared with total of 30 companies. Findings revealed that majority of the companies had a sustainability report and the trend is towards integrated reporting and majority of the companies at the top end of market capitalisation reported on non-financial disclosures. However, the measures used for environmental and social indicators is an issue because the same indicator was measured differently by companies even in the same industry, whereas, indicators used for governance was of regulatory nature and was comparable. This study showed that there is a clear need for uniform measures to report ESG indicator.