by Nik Zam Nik-Wan*, Siti Haliza-Asat, Mustaffa Mohamed Zain

Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

Full Text:

Abstract SMEs should be made accountable for their environmental actions and environmental reporting can serves as an effective means to fulfil the purpose. Unfortunately, SMEs do not received as much emphasize as they should be. To add value to the existing knowledge and to also provide the chance for SMEs to be equally accountable, this study aims to explore the current state of environmental reporting practice by SMEs in Malaysia. The medium of reporting used by the SMEs to communicate their environmental information will be identified along with the forms of environmental information reported by them. This study used qualitative research methodology employing grounded theory approach. All three stages of data collection involved a total of 14 SMEs. The data collection process of this study includes interviews, observations and content analysis of documents. It was identified that the SMEs in this study did prepare environmental reporting but it was quite simple, less variety, very straight forward and a lot lesser than the larger organisations. It was also identified that there were numerous medium of reporting used by the SMEs to disseminate its environmental information. Apart from written communications, the SMEs also utilised verbal communication to disseminate the environmental information. Mainly, the SMEs in this study used the company’s Environmental Policy which was made available to their stakeholders and publicly accessible. The SMEs also displayed their ISO 14001 certifications publicly. Conversely, the Environmental Objectives, Environmental Targets and Strategies were mostly confidential and circulated internally and they were not publicly accessible. The findings would allow the SMEs to select among the variety of medium of reporting that is suitable for their businesses. The qualitative approach adopted by this study also provides detailed and rich information which may widen the scope of research that could be conducted further in the future.

Keywords: SMEs, environmental reporting, medium of reporting, qualitative research

Updated:: 27/06/2022 [syazmer]