Shenaaz Gani

Sustainability reporting is gaining attention among industry professionals and academics. However, it has been criticized since it fails to represent the proper reporting practices of firms, with this being described as symbolic in form. Regardless of this criticism, management of firms in East Africa is increasingly adopting sustainability reporting, despite being voluntary. Therefore, the paper analyzed the determinants of sustainability reporting of East African firms. Eight years of annual reports of 74 listed firms in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda were used. Random and fixed effect regression techniques were employed for the estimates. The study found that firms’ specific characteristics such as size, Tobin’s Q, industry affiliation, and ownership structure have a positive and significant influence on firms’ management to adopt sustainability reporting practices. In addition, it was suggested that firms with a more considerable asset and Tobin’s Q provide more sustainability reporting than those with smaller assets and Tobin’s Q. The results further showed that firms’ age and return on assets do not influence sustainability reporting. The evidence further demonstrated that firms with foreign parent companies significantly disclosed more sustainability information than local firms. The paper concludes that the firm-specific characteristics influence their sustainability reporting practice. The study provides policy implications because it can assist the governments and regulators in these countries in guiding the firms’ reporting practices.

Does it pay to report green activities? This question has dominated academic discussion and has further spiraled into the industry. Questions exist about the value relevance of carbon accounting, given that such practice is voluntary and consumes resources. The question becomes more legitimate when banks whose activities do not negatively affect the environment adopt carbon accounting. Given this perplexing phenomenon, the study examined the impact of carbon accounting on the performance of banks in East Africa. Moreover, the effect of management quality on such a relationship was analyzed. The study relied on eight years of integrated, sustainability, and annual reports of 79 banks in East Africa, collecting the carbon accounting data. A multiple regression estimation technique was employed to estimate the models. The study demonstrated that carbon reporting had a negative and insignificant relationship with the financial performance of banks. In addition, the study showed that management quality turned the relationship between carbon disclosure and firm performance positive, suggesting that the banks with high quality of management benefited financially from carbon reporting. The study concludes that carbon accounting does not benefit East African banks. However, banks that had high quality of management financially benefited from carbon accounting. The significant implication of these results is that banks can benefit from adopting carbon accounting but only when they have high management quality. This study contributes to the debate on the conflicting empirical findings on the value relevance of carbon accounting in Africa, which is scarce.