Environmental Disclosure in Japanese Wood-Related Companies for 2005 and 2010

Environmental and sustainability reports by private sectors are primarily aimed at information disclosure for individual entities. Comparison of such reports in two different years provides us with a unique opportunity to explore the under- lying changes. This chapter compares Japanese wood-related sectors in 2005 and in 2010. During this half-decade, the economy was sluggish, with a number of dramatic meltdowns symbolized by the "Lehman shock" in 2008. The period also experience upheaval in environmental movements with a major UN COP on biodiversity taking place in Nagoya in 2010, making comparison of these 2 years more interesting. Environmental disclosure from 51 companies, mainly from seven wood-related sectors, was reviewed. The trends in disclosed information were reviewed based on the following criteria: publishing of environmental reports, reference to illegal logging, definition of sustainable forest management, and membership in the Global Compact. The results indicated an increase in many of the indicators for large-sized companies, particularly for trading companies. The majority of small- and mid-sized companies did not conduct basic activities such as publishing reports.