CSR Reporting Seen from an Ethical Perspective: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to determine whether the current practice within CSR reporting provides relevant information that enables stakeholders to evaluate the CSR commitment of companies. In order to address this issue, we have conducted an empirical investigation examining the CSR reports of some of the world’s largest companies. Based on the data, we argue that CSR reporting does not enable stakeholders to evaluate the CSR commitment of companies. The main problem is that companies do not present or defend sufficiently clear baselines, i.e. stakeholders are mostly kept in the dark when it comes to the level of a company’s social and environmental obligations. In addition, the variety of different values, e.g., marginal groups in the workforce, and reducing CO2 emissions, makes CSR reports very hard to evaluate. The lack of a common CSR currency means that we need guidelines on how to compare the different values.