Abstract

Increasingly the business community is being asked to respond to growing societal concerns about the environment. One business response which has been widely researched from a number of aspects has been the development of standalone environmental reports. However, one key aspect which has not yet been fully investigated is the impact of environmental reporting upon organisational activity. Using an institutional theory perspective, this paper provides a framework for the examination of the embedding of environmental reporting structures into organisational processes and culture. Using this outline framework to analyse existing literature, the paper concludes that there are many issues about the impact of environmental reporting which are still unclear and that many of the attributes of the environmental agenda suggest that it could be another management fad