**4. Methodology**

The sample consists of 50 nonfinancial firms listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange that may affect the environment; forestry; the extractive and manufacture industry; food industry; construction industry; automobile industry; chemical industry; production and distribution of electricity, oil, gas and water; engineering and transport and storage. Fifty companies are selected, using proportionate stratified random sampling technique from 19 sectors.

The annual report is the main source of data being utilized in the recent study to analyze the environmental reporting practices of firms listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange covering a period of 2014–2015. The selected time span is not an independent period compared to systematic factors in the economy (for details see Appendix 2 showing the major macro-economic factors) and no major economic event took place during this period. The reports have been used as the fundamental medium of reporting social and environmental activities of firms as evident from prior studies performed by the authors in [54, 61, 73].
