EXECUTIVE AND NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS ROLE ON ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE AMONG LISTED FIRMS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study established that annual reports of environmentally sensitive listed companies in Nigeria provide information on environmental issues which is very important to relevant stakeholders and other users of accounting information. Thus, the main goal of this research is to empirically examine the role of executive and non-executive directors as part of board characteristics on the disclosures of environmental issues of environmentally sensitive listed companies in Nigeria. The data used for the study is derived from annual reports of 37 environmentally sensitive listed companies during 2014. A content examination of the environmental disclosure of the sampled companies was carried out using Global Reporting Initiative checklist for the environmental disclosure. The study employed ordinary least square regression to test the established hypothesis of the study. The finding of the study shows that non-executive directors on board have a significant positive effect on environmental disclosure while executive directors are found to have insignificant impact on environmental disclosure among environmentally sensitive listed companies in Nigeria.