SINTEZA 2014 Information systems in accounting and audit Impact of Internet on Business activities in Serbia and Worldwide Uticaj Interneta na poslovanje u Srbiji i svetu doI: 10.15308/SInteZa-2014-537-540 ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB Goranka Knežević, Marija Kostić, Predrag Vukadinović Singidunum University, faculty of business, Belgrade, Serbia Abstract: This paper analyzes implementation and web reporting on environmental programs within corporate social responsibility policy of economic entities. Governments of EU Member Key words: States has to fulfil “environmental” obligations and establish further mechanisms by which web environmental reporting, they will oblige or motivate all relevant national entities – primarily companies – to actively environmental programmes, work on the improvement of the environment. In that sense, we have compared and ana- annual reports, lyzed current situation in reporting on environment of our best economic entities within sustainability reports, Belgrade Stock Exchange Index (Belex 15). corporate social responsibility. INTRODUCTION ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION – GENERAL TRENDS WITHIN EUROPEAN UNION One of the biggest challenges of the humanity during this century is going to be the achievement of sustain- e need of environment protection is more and more able development. us, huge part of the responsibility prevailing the awareness of widest public, as well lead- lays down on economic sector, because the destiny of the ers of governments in states worldwide. Over the years whole man-kind is mostly depending on business meth- numerous environmental aspects had been protected and ods used in it, i.e. solving or causing problems a ecting the whole society. their endangering is sanctioned increasingly. In European Union environmental policy belongs to shared competen- We could present corporate environmental responsi- cies, meaning that EU institutions and governments of EU bility in the widest sense as a way of economic entities’ member states share responsibility in terms of its imple- business, i.e. development of their innovative and eco- nomically sustainable products, processes and services, mentation. e goal of this policy is not only protection in accordance with needs of environment. of environment in the current condition, but – a er entry of e Lisbon Treaty on EU into force in 2009 – an ob- Since reporting on environmental responsibility is enabling more concrete inclusion of an economic entity ligation of its quality improvement was also introduced in wider non-economic ows, in the paper we have ana- for the purpose of sustainable development establishment. lyzed current practice of economic entities in our coun- e EU legislator and powerful international organi- try. We have limited our research to the use of electronic zations and institutions have expressed unquestionable environmental reports and web sites as a presentation support to adoption and implementation of the concept medium. While processing the topic, we have used both of sustainable development in the new millennium. Gov- theoretic achievements and legal regulations in this eld ernments of Member States have accepted the obligation and researches of current practice of reporting of compa- to de ne and implement measures on national levels in nies from non- nancial sector in Serbia included in the relation to presented imperative and there is no doubt calculation of Belgrade Stock Exchange index - Belex 15. about that any longer. However, concrete achievement of 537 SINTEZA 2014 Information systems in accounting and audit set objectives will exclusively depend on concrete meas- Gazette of the Republic of Serbia No.53/2004, 11/2005, ures and activities conducted daily. e burden of this 51/2005). It means that Serbian companies use standard- responsibility is, above all, on economic entities as stake- ized nancial statements. Law on Accounting requires holders, since their activities have the strongest in uence that large companies should make their nancial state- on quality of lives of individuals and their environment. ment visible to users and all of the companies use the web e Lisbon Treaty a rms determination of the Eu- site as a reporting medium, because of its global visibility ropean legislator towards continuous and progressive and good quality of presentation of the reports. Although, expansion of requirements and raise of environmental Law does not prescribe which medium to use to make the standards and improvement of environment quality. is reports visible. Serbian companies have chosen to present further indicates permanent increase in obligations for their annual reports as a hard copy version and as a web Member States’ governments, but also all their socially based version. In regular annual reports companies do responsible stake-holders to undertake apropriate envi- not present any environmental information. at is why ronmental measures and activities. erefore, it is more this report is supplemented by additional reports used to than desirable for companies to improve the quality of show environmental information. ere is no law gov- environment through implementation of environmental erning these issues and reports are prepared on a volun- plans within their corporate social responsibility – and tary basis. In Serbia those reports are required in the case even more than determined by regulations Kostić, M. when company is included in some general projects for and Gasmi, G., 2010. Up to now we have tried to give environmental preservation (for example projects by UN arguments for the importance of corporate social respon- Compact Group). Company is then required to improve sibility and environmental responsibility implementation. its environmental information transmission as a part of But the fact is that companies realistically do not have the results of the project. In this speci c case, additional strong reasons to do so, since their main goal is to make report on environment is presented in electronic form, pro t. Even if they determine to implement environmen- especially through company’s web site. From the above tal programmes within their corporative social responsi- mentioned, we can conclude that regulative framework in bility, companies will do so for the purpose of their own Serbia for environmental reporting is at a very low level in positive marketing and establishment of positive rela- a sense that it does not facilitates the transmission of that tions with the public. Companies which really consider kind of information by Serbian companies. e practical that through environmentally positive and sustainable research conducted and presented in the following para- methods of production and services providing they will, graphs would reveal additional facts about the develop- at the same time, achieve, i.e. increase pro ts, are oriented ment stage in environmental reporting in Serbia using the to corporate social performance of activities, not to cor- World Wide Web. porate social responsibility Hay, B., Stavins, R.N., 2005. Unlike corporate social responsibility, corporate social Research Methodology and Criteria for performance presents „strategic“ behaviour of the rm Companies’ Ranking (i.e. any business entity) in the sense of „con guration of principles, processes and policies and their noticeable out- eoretic elaborations in this paper are supplemented comes in regard to social relations“ Reinhard, F., 1999, by the analysis of environmental reporting using the web with a vision that such behaviour will lead to increase of sites and annual reports by Serbian economic entities be- owner’s pro t. Such strategic determination is character- longing to non- nancial sector of economy, and included istic for manufacturers of products and services marked in calculation of Belgrade Stock Exchange Index, known with eco-label Kostić, M., 2009. as Belex 15. Non nancial sector of this Index consists of 12 entities. e research was limited to companies of ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING USING THE non- nancial sector because we consider them as biggest WWW potential polluters, and these companies and their prac- tice should be examples to others if we speak of reporting Environmental reporting in Serbia using WWW- on environmental issues. legal requirements e basic research methodology is content analysis. Orientation to this type of secondary data collection re- Environmental reporting by Serbian companies can be sulted from the fact that we use information readily avail- presented in annual reports as an o cial form of trans- able on corporate websites. Content analysis has been mitting accounting information, or in supplemental re- widely used in the literature examining non nancial dis- ports. Certain requirements of the Law exist in this area of closure behaviour (Unerman, 2000). reporting. Annual reports of Serbian companies required to follow IFRS/IAS consist of Balance Sheet, Income State- Results of the Research ment, Cash ow Statement and Statement of Changes in Equity. All these reports are prepared in accordance with Non nancial sector companies from Belex 15 Index the Rulebook on the content of items comprising Balance include the following 12 companies: NIS, ad, Sojapro- 538 Sheet, Income Statement and Cash ow Statement (O cial tein, Energoprojekt Holding, a.d, Imlek a.d., Metalac, a.d, SINTEZA 2014 Information systems in accounting and audit Aerodrom Nikola Tesla, a.d., Tigar, a.d., Galenika tofar- TABLE NO. 2. Advanced elements of web based reports