Abstract
Essentially, corporate sustainability reporting (CSR) involves the communication of a company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives, as well as other related operational concerns, with its stakeholders. Consequently, CSR can be seen as an important tool in ensuring that corporations are accountable and sustainable when conducting their affairs. CSR is considered particularly important for the mining sector given the socioenvironmental challenges, as well as the health and safety issues associated with it. In this minor dissertation, the aim was to compare the patterns of CSR amongst selected Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE)-listed mining companies in South Africa. Judgmental or purposive sampling was used to select a sample of five mining companies listed on the JSE. The results of the study revealed that the extent of socio-environmental sustainability disclosures amongst the mining companies was generally low as the majority of them either made disclosures to a lesser extent or none at all. Despite this, economic sustainability disclosures were made to a large extent or fully integrated to the financial aspects of the respective organisations. The sampled JSE-listed mining companies were also consistent corporate reporters as each of them produced at least one corporate sustainability report per annum. Moreover, the study determined that the sampled CSRs were Integrated Reports (IRs). Given the results generated, there is a need for improvement regarding the nature of disclosures related to socio-environmental topics in the CSRs as these are the most pertinent issues to the stakeholders of mining companies...
M.Sc. (Environmental Management)