Segmentación de los canales de venta

Despite the number of organisations engaging in S&ER practices, there is very little regulation regarding S&ER in Australia. Mandatory disclosure is limited to requirements under section 299(1)(f) of the Corporations Act, subsections 62(2) and 70(2) of the Public Service Act 1999, The National Pollutant Inventory, and section 1013(1)(I) of the Financial Services Reform Act 2001. The most extensive of these is section 299(1)(f), which requires organisations that “are

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subject to any particular and significant environmental regulation under a law of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory” to disclose “details of the entity’s performance in relation to environmental regulation” (Lipton, Herzberg & Von Nessen, 2006: 256).

The introduction of section 299(1)(f) resulted from a compromise between political parties during the federal government’s Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (CLERP) and was not subject to the due process generally expected with respect to the advancement of Government regulation (Frost & English, 2002). As a result, section 299(1)(f) proved to be highly controversial, and a request was made to the Parliamentary Joint Statutory Committee on Corporation and Securities that an inquiry into the provision be conducted. Fifty-two written submissions were made to the inquiry, the majority of which opposed the provision (Frost & English, 2002).

This opposition to mandatory S&ER by the Australian business community was seen again in 2005 with the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (PJCCFS)

Inquiry into Corporate Responsibility, which asked for submissions considering whether the

Corporations Act should be amended to require particular types of companies to report upon the social and environmental impacts of their activities, rather than simply their performance with respect to environmental regulation (Adams & Frost, 2007; Deegan 2009). However, it is worth noting that the majority of those submissions opposing the further regulation of S&ER were from business and professional bodies, whilst NGOs such as Greenpeace, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the St James Ethics Centre appeared to view mandatory reporting more positively (Adams and Frost, 2007). Upon completion of the inquiry, the government concluded that it was not necessary to amend the Corporations Act with respect to S&ER requirements (Deegan, 2009).

In addition to the requirements of section 299(1)(f), Australian organisations that emit certain substances are required to lodge a National Pollution Inventory (NPI) report (Adams & Frost, 2007). The NPI is a web-based database implemented by the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments. The purpose of the NPI is to provide an incentive for cleaner production and improve the accountability of companies by enabling comparability of their performance (Wood & Ross, 2006). However, the recipients of the NPI reports are generally restricted to the relevant government agencies (Frost et al., 2005). Mandatory reporting regarding social inclusion,

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environmental performance and ecologically sustainable development is also required under subsections 62(2) and 70(2) of the Public Service Act 1999, however this requirement is restricted to specific government agencies (Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2011).

Finally, mandatory reporting is required under section 1013D(1)(I) of the Financial Services Reform Act 2001 (Adams & Zutshi, 2004). However, as with the Public Service Act, this requirement is restricted to a very narrow field of organisations. This section requires those providing financial products with an investment component to disclose in their product disclosure statements the extent to which social, environmental and ethical considerations have been taken into account (Adams, 2004; CPA Australia, 2005).

Academics have been calling for the introduction of mandatory accounting standards regarding S&ER for decades (e.g. Parker, 1986; Deegan et al., 2000; Yusoff & Lehman, 2009). However, as noted above, S&ER in Australia remains predominantly voluntary (Deegan, Cooper & Shelly, 2006(a)). It has been over 25 years since Parker (1986) argued that the increasing number of organisations engaging in S&EA and S&ER practices was the strongest case for the introduction of relevant accounting standards. He stated that accounting standards would provide a “common elementary baseline” (Parker, 1986: 89), and would serve the dual function of enabling practical application and as a means of further theoretical development (Parker, 1986). Therefore it is somewhat concerning to note that whilst the following years have seen an even greater growth in S&ER, the regulatory requirements in relation to S&ER remain relatively unchanged.

Government legislation can be a significant source of cognitive dissonance amongst managers, and thus acts as an important driver of organisational change with respect to S&ER (Adams & Whelan, 2009). However, whilst mandatory disclosure requirements have been shown to improve the quality of disclosures (Frost, 2007), legislation is only effective to the extent to which it is enforced (Adams & Whelan, 2009), and it has been suggested that many organisations prefer a voluntary reporting system as it enables them to control the amount of information provided to potential users (Frost & English, 2002).

Furthermore, it has been suggested that politicians may be more likely to introduce legislation if it is in their political interests to do so (Adams & Whelan, 2009), and it may be argued that large

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corporations wield a great deal of political power (Deegan, 2009). This appears to be demonstrated by the Australian government’s decision not to introduce additional mandatory reporting requirements following the 2005 inquiry. The recommendation of the PJCCFS was based upon the assumption that markets are efficient and would penalise those organisations not driven by ‘enlightened self-interest’, a premise similar to many of the anti-regulation arguments submitted by large organisations and industry bodies (Deegan, 2009).

The decision of the Australian government not to introduce further legislation with respect to corporate S&ER, despite evidence suggesting that legislation does improve the quality of disclosures (Frost, 2007), is made all the more intriguing by their decision to implement mandatory S&ER for particular government agencies. Arguably, public companies and government agencies bear some similarities in that both are funded with public monies, generally require significant resources to operate, and may have a significant impact on the society in which they operate. Therefore the decision to regulate the S&ER of one type of organisation yet not the other is questionable.

Further speculation regarding the political reasons for the lack of S&ER regulation in Australia is beyond the scope of this dissertation. What must be emphasised is that whilst large publicly listed organisations have actively opposed the introduction of mandatory S&ER, an increasing number continue to voluntarily disclose information regarding their social and environmental performance. This increasing engagement in voluntary organisational S&ER practices over the last few decades has also seen the development of a number of voluntary reporting frameworks.