Sustainability Disclosures and Performance of Firms in Nigeria

This work empirically investigated the effect of sustainability disclosures on performance of firms in Nigeria. The study is vital as it portrays the extent to which sustainability disclosures influence firms’ performance in Nigeria. In order to determine the relationship between sustainability disclosures and firms performance, some key proxy variables were used in the study, namely economic sustainability disclosure, social sustainability disclosure and corporate governance disclosure while firm performance on the hand was represented by net assets share (NAPS). Three hypotheses were formulated to guide the investigation and the statistical test of parameter estimates was conducted using Panel least squares regression model. The research design used is Ex Post Facto design and data for the study were obtained from the published annual financial reports of non-financial firms listed on the floors of the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) spanning from 2018-2023. The findings generally indicate that economic sustainability disclosure, social sustainability disclosure and corporate governance disclosure have positive and significant effect on firm performance at 1% level of significance. Based on this, the study concludes that sustainability disclosures have positively improved firms performance in Nigeria over the years. The study therefore suggests that non-financial firms in Nigeria should sustain and even increase disclosure of economic and social activities also corporate governance practices in their published financial statements, as it has the potential to positively influence financial performance of firms even though it is not mandatory.