AUDIT COMMITTEE CHARACTERISTICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE OF NIGERIAN LISTED FIRMS

Abstract

The research examines the effect of audit committee characteristics on environmental disclosure in annual reports of quoted industrial and natural resources for the period of 4 years (2015 – 2018). The study uses a sample of 16 listed firms and content analysis technique was employed to compute environmental disclosure indexes using GRI, while regression analysis was also conducted to test the relationship between research variables. The study revealed that audit committee size, audit committee diversity and audit committee meeting were significantly related to environmental disclosure. Also, the study found that other variables were insignificantly related to environmental disclosure. Thus, the country should endeavour to design appropriate mandatory policies which will encourage and compel all listed firms to report their environmental information.