Impact of environmental cost on the profitability of quoted manufacturing companies in Nigeria

Corporate involvement in environmental initiatives and reporting is essential for increasing and sustaining performance in a dynamic and changing environment. However, this involvement in environmental activities is not without costs implication. Hence, business managers tend to sacrifice engaging and reporting environmental initiatives for economic benefits. This study examined the impact of environmental costs on the profitability of quoted manufacturing companies from 2007 to 2017. The study used the ex-post facto research design. Twenty mentioned manufacturing companies were purposively drawn from the population of sixty manufacturing companies listed on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The study variables were sourced from the annual reports and accounts as well as the stand-alone environmental information of the selected companies over eleven years from 2007-2017. The cost incurred on environmental initiatives to the community and training of employees on environmental concerns were used as proxies for environmental cost. At the same time, the DuPont return on equity was proxy for profitability. The findings from the panel random-effect regression analysis showed that asset use efficiency (F = 3.368, p = .01) and equity multiplier (F = 3.3301, p = .01) were significantly influenced by environmental cost; while operating efficiency (F= 0.5158, p = .72) was not significantly impacted by environmental cost at 5% level of significance. As such, in this study, the asset use efficiency and equity multiplier are the main drivers of a significant increase in the return on equity of quoted manufacturing companies in Nigeria from 2007 to 2017. The study, therefore, concluded that environmental costs significantly affect the profitability of quoted manufacturing companies in Nigeria.