Abstract

This chapter aims to develop a scoring guideline for conducting a content analysis of sustainability reports to reduce subjectivity and improve the quality of the process. This guideline is applied by implementing every step of the new proposed guideline to examine sustainability reports, to evaluate whether or not the new proposed guideline works appropriately in terms of scrutinizing the quantity and quality information of the reports. Samples for analysis are selected from several Indonesian mining companies that produce sustainability reports. The findings show that the guideline developed in this study provides detailed steps and eases the coder in performing content analysis. In addition, this guideline also confirms that subjectivity can be reduced during the process. The results of the analysis applied in the sustainability reports demonstrate that information of ‘economic aspects’ is the most disclosed information, while ‘environment aspects’ is the least disclosed information in the companies’ sustainability reports. Documentation of disclosed information in the reports is mostly positive and descriptive in nature, rather than negative and quantitative. Some suggestions to improve the writing in the context of sustainability reports are also provided.