Do regulation influence voluntary environmental disclosure? an empirical survey on italian listed companies

In this paper we analyzed the voluntary environmental disclosure in Italy in order to assess the impact of legislative decree no. 32 of 2007, wich introduced, amending Article 2428 of the Civil Code, for the first time in Italy, at least in voluntary terms, information relating to the environment. The results testify the positive and statistically significant impact on the level of voluntary environmental disclosure since the introduction of legislative decree no. 32 of 2007. The findings show a positive and statistically significant relation between voluntary environmental disclosure and participation of public government and the level of environmental performance. On the other side, the results show a negative and statistically significant relationship between environmental voluntary disclosure and the presence of minority and international auditors