1.

0 Introduction
The Bangladesh government has taken several environmental protection regulations
considering the fact that the ecological environmental problem getting more acute across the
world. However, disclosing environmental information is not mandatory rather the disclosure
of environmental information for the firms relies on voluntary. A few numbers of companies
from different industries are disclosing their environmental information in the annual reports
whereas a large number of companies avoid disclosing such information. The objective of the
study is to identify the relationship between the environmental information disclosure and
firm performance by using the data of four different industries named Electrical &
Engineering, Cement, Ceramics and ICT within the Bangladeshi context. The outcome shows
that the disclosures of environmental information has positive association with financial
performance. That means the firms with higher disclosures of environmental information
have better financial performance relative to firms with no or less environmental information
disclosures.

2.0 Literature Review

R Deswanto, S Siregar, (2018) examined the association between environmental disclosure

and financial performance from 258 large companies of Indonesia. The outcome explained
that companies which are classified as better performers in terms of financial aspects had
higher causation of environmental policies than companies classified as downcast performers.
Moreover, companies which are classified as mid-level performers had the highest causation
of firm environmental policies.
M Abdullah, N Hamzah, M Ali, M Tseng, M Brander, (2019) conducted a study on the
south-east Asian countries where they identified 5 types of environmental disclosures from
stakeholders and most importantly found an additional environmental indicator which is
called as location of logging and forest clearance. The study revealed that Indonesian
ploughing companies had lack of responsibility and transparency related to the haze and other
environmental issues. However. Malaysian companies had better responsibility in terms of
revealing their environmental information in every year which reflects better transparency.
So, environmental disclosures was positively related with Malaysian firm performance.
M Kimbro, S Melendy, (2010) investigated that voluntary disclosures of environmental
information in the annual reports had highly helped managers to shape their expectations of
sustainability and risk exposures of the firm. In the case of Hong Kong, the firms with no or
less disclosures of environmental information in the annual reports had faced critical situation
in terms of financial condition. On the other hand, firms with relatively high disclosure of
environmental information voluntarily had achieved superior profitability and sustainability.
Freedman, Martin. and Jaggi, Bikki, (2006) published a book where they found out the
disclosures of environmental information leads to better performances of the firms. Besides,
they also mentioned the difficulty to measure the qualitative environmental information
which might be misleading or can easily be manipulated.
E Connors, H Johnston, (2013) published a journal where they tried to identify the
association between voluntary environmental disclosures and firm risk premium and came
out finding that the firms which made environmental information public has greater exposure
in profitability and lower exposure in risks. They basically conducted the research based on
the electrical utility and chemicals industries where they find they found out positive
association of financial performance with environmental information. Other several studies
concluded different scenario in the relationship of these two variables which are based on the
other industries except chemicals and electrical utility. So, Connors and Johnston had finally
reached to a conclusion that the association between environmental disclosures and firm’s
performance is dependent on the industry sector.

2.1 Research Gap

This research is based on only four industry data which may not be enough to reflect the
actual association of the environmental information disclosure and financial performance in
overall. Addition to more industry sectors might be a better way to reach into conclusion.
Measuring the environmental qualitative information is always challenging as there are no
specific functions to do so and also functions can’t be a standard determiner. Besides, being
new in doing research in such an arena we realized the lack of competence in using some
advanced level analytical tools.
3.0 References

1.Deswanto, R. and Siregar, S. (2018). The associations between environmental disclosures

with financial performance, environmental performance, and firm value. Social
Responsibility Journal, 14(1), pp.180-193.

2. Kimbro, M. and Melendy, S. (2010). Financial performance and voluntary environmental

disclosures during the Asian Financial Crisis: the case of Hong Kong. International Journal of
Business Performance Management, 12(1), p.72.

3. Abdullah, M., Hamzah, N., Ali, M., Tseng, M. and Brander, M. (2019). The Southeast
Asian Haze: the quality of environmental disclosures and firm performance. Journal of
Cleaner Production, p.118958.

4. Freedman, M. and Jaggi, B. (2006). Environmental Accounting, Volume 3. 3rd ed.

Burlington: Emerald Group Pub., pp.127-136.

5. Connors, E. and Johnston, H. (2013). Voluntary Environmental Disclosures in 10-Ks and

Environmental Reports: Determinants and Relationship to Firm Risk Premium. SSRN
Electronic Journal, 2.