The Influence of Information Provision on Environmental Risk Perception

The generation of company environmental reports has increased significantly in recent years, and this trend appears likely to continue. Clearly one of the aims of environmental reporting is to influence how stakeholders perceive the environmental performance of organizations. It is therefore timely to examine the influence that environmental reports can have on community perceptions of risk. This article presents the outcomes of research into the influence that corporation-provided environmental information has had on communities surrounding a domestic waste landfill and a mineral sands mine in the South West of Western Australia. ‘Influence’ was measured by analyzing the change in community perceptions of risk, trust, and bias after the introduction of an information pamphlet. The research indicates that, for the two surveyed communities, provision of information significantly altered perceptions of the three variables. This study also found that information provision was just as likely to affect community risk perceptions even if respondents believed the information to be unreliable and inaccurate. Finally, the research shows that regular communication is more likely to result in positive perceptions of corporate performance than would sporadic and irregular reporting.