Long-term reporting of environmental disasters on the example of BP

Abstract

Man has been influencing the natural environment for centuries. The strength of the impact increased over time. In today's world, it is quite big. Sometimes human activity causes a slight imbalance in ecosystems, which returns to normal over time. Sometimes, however, man-made changes to the ecosystem are sudden and irreversible (Mazur, 2008). Some of the greatest irreversible changes to ecosystems are caused by man in the seas and oceans. One of the environmental disasters was the one caused by BP in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. This event had a huge impact on the company's operations and costs. The company informed about it in the following years in its annual reports. However, after 10 years, there is no point in finding satisfactory non-financial information about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico and what the company is doing for the community in the area. The aim of the article is to show: (1) how information on the ecological disaster is presented in long-term annual reports (2) to show the trends in the occurrence of keywords related to the ecological disaster and the environment in reports (3) To propose changes and improvements in long-term reporting ecological disaster. While writing the article, the following methods were used: induction, deduction, descriptive analysis, as well as desk research analysis.

Keywords

• environment
• reporting
• coporate social responsibility