1. Discuss why financial statement users find environmental disclosures informative.

2. Obtain the G3 sustainability reporting guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, www.globalreporting.org). List the environmental performance indicators that the GRI recommends for disclosure.

3. How closely do Roche’s environmental disclosures match the GRI recommendations What are the areas of nondisclosure?

4. Describe the environmental disclosures that O.J. should recommend his company make.

MINI CASE 

O.J. Sanders works in the financial reporting section of a large U.S. pharmaceutical company. The company has recently committed to “go green” and O.J.’s boss wants to add some environmental disclosures in the company’s annual report. O.J. is charged with recommending the contents of the environmental disclosure. In his research, O.J. learns that U.S. companies have generally lagged European companies in environmental reporting, but that more and more U.S. companies are now disclosing environmental matters. He believes that his company should at least “match the competition” in the disclosures it makes. Toward that end, he obtains the annual report of Roche, a Swiss competitor. O.J. also learns about the G3 sustainability reporting guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative.