Environmental disclosures in annual reports of Australian gold and copper mining companies with activities in Papua New Guinea and/ or Indonesia

This paper considers some preliminary evidence about environmental disclosures of Australian gold/copper mining companies with interests in PNG, Indonesia, or both. First, comment is made about the possible importance of the content of annual reports to stakeholders. Second, a framework of expectations about annual report disclosures of multinationals is developed. Third, the technique of content analysis is outlined and its advantages and disadvantages are explored. Major problems are identified with the method’s internal validity. Finally, comment is made on some preliminary findings about the environmental disclosures observed in a sample of published annual reports of Australian-based, listed mining companies between 1994 and 1996. 1 See Appendix 4 for an outline of these interests.