Abstract
The study evaluates South African listed mining companies’ climate-related disclosure
practices, with a perspective of both challenges and opportunities of complying with
ESG reporting standards. A PRISMA protocol was employed for the selection of relevant
articles on climate-related disclosures from Scopus databases. The screened articles
were then used for content analysis, with secondary data collected from integrated
reports of the top ten listed mining companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
The research found that there is a gradual and consistent climate-related disclosure by
the top ten listed mining firms in South Africa over the years. There are substantial
differences between the structure, content, metrics and level of compliance among
mining firms. The practical implications of the research findings include offering insights
to policymakers, investors and regulators in promoting transparency and accountability
in environmental impact, as well as informing the formulation of regulations in South
Africa’s corporate reporting environment. In addition, mining companies in South Africa
are encouraged to align with international climate report models and dimensions to
ensure business competitiveness and to boost stakeholder trust. A climate disclosure
alignment framework was presented to guide researchers on the usefulness of a
structured manner of evaluating current climate reporting practices in the mining
sector. The study is limited to the sample size of the top 10 JSE-listed mining companies.
This may not fully represent the broader mining sector, particularly small-scale miners
or non-listed mining firms that may have different disclosure practices.