Evaluating environmental disclosures: The relationship between quality and extent measures

This study compares the results from conducting various forms of content analysis that measure extent of reporting (sentence count, page count, proportions) with an evaluation of the quality of information determined by applying a disclosure quality index. We examine the environmental reporting of the same group of companies in various media and find that the various content analysis methods used to assess extent and quality of disclosure are highly correlated with one another. In particular, the quality of disclosure is highly correlated to the extent of reporting measured by a sentence count. Furthermore, we report a new measure – quality score per sentence. We propose that a quality per sentence measure could help to distinguish between companies making high quality and low quality disclosures, as it takes into account both the extent and the quality of the disclosures.