Abstract—While extant research has examined many aspects of differential corporate environmental outcomes and behavior, a holistic and integrated view of heterogeneity in corporate environment sustainability (CES) practices remains a puzzle to be fully unraveled – its extent and nature, its relationship to macro or micro level influences, or strategic orientations. Such a perspective would be meaningful for the field given notable strides in CES practices and the corporate social responsibility agenda over the last two decades, in the backdrop of altered global socio-political sensitivities and technological advances. To partly address this gap, this exploratory research adopted a content analysis approach to code patterns in the sustainability disclosures of the 160 largest global firms spread over 8 years. The sample of firms spanned seven industries, nine countries and three continents thereby presenting data rich and diverse enough in several dimensions to be representative of global heterogeneity in CES practices. Through a factor analysis of the coded data, four strategic CES orientations were extracted through the analysis, that effectively straddles most of the variation observed in current CES practices – one that seeks to reduce environmental damage on account of the firm’s operations, another that prioritizes minimalism, a third that focuses on broader ecological status quo, and a final one that champions the ‘business of green’, extending the CES agenda beyond the firm’s boundaries. These environment sustainability strategy orientations are further examined to elicit prominent patterns and explore plausible antecedents. Keywords—Corporate sustainability, corporate social responsibility, corporate environmental management, environmental strategy. I. INTRODUCTION HE concept of corporate environment sustainability (CES) and the phenomenon of diverse environmental outcomes have attracted significant academic attention, especially since the mid-1990s [1]. We are informed by insightful and compelling explanations of varying environmental performances and outcomes, differential approaches to CES and disparate responses to stakeholder pressures, dominantly anchored in neo-institutional, stakeholder, organizational and managerial level influences [2]-[5]. Nevertheless, a holistic and integrated view of this heterogeneity in CES practices still evades us – its extent and nature, its relationship to macro or micro level influences, and any associated strategic or philosophical orientations. Venkataraman Sankaranarayanan is with the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, India (Corresponding Author; phone: +91- 9748182481; e-mail: venkat10@ iimcal.ac.in). Sougata Ray is with the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, India. Over the last three decades, conceptual and empirical research in corporate sustainability (CS) and CES has addressed a wide array of topics, with dominant themes including the examination of sustainability-financial performance linkage and the rationale for firms to pursue sustainability [6]. Literature on environmental sustainability has paid greater attention to investigating pollution control approaches of firms as compared to their product stewardship or “sustainable development” initiatives [7] and this bias is attributable partly to data issues and partly to confounding conceptions of sustainable development in the business context [8]. Insights on how and why firms adopt different approaches and strategies to CES seem to have emerged somewhat indirectly, in the course of investigating specific environmental outcomes and different types of environmental outcomes [1]. These inquiries inform us of organizational and managerial motivations from different theoretical perspectives: Institutional theory and stakeholder influences [3], [5], [8], [9]. We also have accounts of why some firms are more proactive in adopting environmental strategies, in exceeding regulatory standards; or why and how some industries appear to be adopting more sustainable practices than some others [10]. Similarly [11] argued that the presence of more active stakeholders had a significant influence on how firms responded to environmental pressures. Micro level variables also were seen to impact firms’ environmental practices - for instance, [4] demonstrated the influence of differential managerial interpretations of sustainability – seeing it as either an opportunity or as a risk, while CEO characteristics such qualifications and newness to the job were seen to impact firms’ environmental disclosure propensities [12]. Even as these studies have enriched our understanding of different slices of the diversity in firms’ CES approaches practices and outcomes, we still do not seem to have sight of the whole CES heterogeneity “pie”. Extant research reveals relatively few instances of such an integrated approach to understanding CES heterogeneity. The dominant attention in prior studies of “organizations in the natural environment”, have been either been to the specific environmental outcomes or about how organizational outcomes are impacted by the environment, to the extent of 81% [1] and little about the phenomenon of heterogeneity in CES per se. In seeking to partly address this gap, this study poses the research questions: What are the various different strategic orientations that firms A Content Analysis of Sustainability Reporting to Frame the Heterogeneity in Corporate Environment Sustainability Practices Venkataraman Sankaranarayanan, Sougata Ray T World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Environmental and Ecological Engineering Vol:11, No:4, 2017 338 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 11(4) 2017 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/10007026 International Science Index, Environmental and Ecological Engineering Vol:11, No:4, 2017 waset.org/Publication/10007026