A CRITIQUE OF REPORTING ON ETHICAL, SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: THE CASE OF ICI by

The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it assesses the extent to which corporate reporting on ethical, social and environmental issues reflects corporate performance in ICI. This ‘reporting-performance’ gap is a key measure of the extent to which an organisation is accountable to its stakeholders. ICI’s disclosures concerning its ethical, social and environmental performance for the years 1993 and 1999 were compared with information obtained on ICI’s performance from other sources. Two very different pictures of performance emerged leading to the conclusion that ICI reports do not demonstrate accountability. Of particular concern is the lack of completeness of reporting. Secondly, the paper assesses the potential of recent standards or guidelines developed by the Global Reporting Initiative and the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability as well as the chemical industry’s own ‘Responsible Care’ initiative to reduce this ‘reporting-performance’ gap and improve corporate accountability.