ABSTRACT

The objective of the study is to examine the comparative analysis of the relationship between environmental, social and governance disclosure and financial performance of listed Oil and Gas firms in Nigeria and Ghana. The study used a balanced panel data research design and data was collected from the website of the Nigeria Exchange Group and the Ghana Stock Exchange. A total of ten (10) listed Oil and Gas firms in Nigeria and Ghana was investigated from the period of 2017-2023 (7 years). Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the data while the panel least squares regression was used to draw inference on the phenomenon studied. The result from the inferential statistics revealed that environmental disclosure has positive and significant impact on Return on Assets and Retained Earning Ratios of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria and Ghana, while on Earning Yield, there is mixed results. The result also shows that social disclosure has positive and significant impact on Return on Assets and Retained Earnings Ratios of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria while the result for Ghana Oil and Gas companies showed positive but not significant impact on Return on Assets and Retained Earnings Ratios and no significant impact on Earning Yield in Nigeria and Ghana. Finally, the result showed that governance disclosure in both Nigeria & Ghana, has positive and significant impact on Return on Assets and Retained Earnings Ratios of their listed Oil and Gas companies, while on Earning Yield, there is mixed results. The study concluded that Environmental, Social and Governance disclosure components has positive relationship with financial performance of listed Oil and Gas firms in Nigeria and Ghana using Return on Assets as a measure of financial performance. However, using Retained Earnings Ratio and Earning Yield, there is mixed findings on the relationship between ESG disclosure and financial performance of listed Oil and Gas firms in Nigeria and Ghana. The study recommended that Oil and Gas firms in Nigeria and Ghana should uphold the current strive in disclosing issues as regard environment and climate issue due to its effect on their performance.