Abstract
The achievement of climate neutrality and eco-economic decoupling requires explicit measures to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and to implement circular economy (CE) principles in practice. The energy sector is of particular importance in meeting these challenges because it exerts a substantial environmental impact. Therefore, it is extremely important to determine how essential GHG and CE issues are for companies operating in the energy sector. This can be reflected in corporate strategies, but it can also be disclosed to the public in sustainability reports. For this reason, this article presents a comprehensive analysis of sustainability reports based on the latest GRI Standards published by companies representing the energy sector in the European Union to determine the existence, quality, and specificity of reporting GHG and CE issues. The research results demonstrate that sustainability reports from the energy sector companies tend to focus more on GHG issues. They rarely point to actions related to CE, including actions enabling a reduction in GHG emissions, as those with high priority. In addition, declarations from the analyzed companies regarding intentions related to GHG and CE issues at the strategic level find a rather poor reflection in the description of specific actions in this area or in demonstrating appropriate indicators at the operational level. Considering the indicators included in the reports, the analyzed companies insufficiently describe the methods they use to gather, compile, and analyze information on the effectiveness of actions taken to address GHG and CE issues. As for the identification of potential determinants of the quality of reporting GHG and CE issues, the research results indicate that it is mostly influenced by external assurance and the report option. Sustainability reports submitted for external assurance and reports with the comprehensive option are significantly more developed than other types of reports. However, the clarity of reports with the core option is higher compared to the comprehensive group. In addition, it was indicated that the clarity of stand-alone reports is higher compared to other types of reports.
Highlights
Climate change resulting from the emission of a significant amount of greenhouse gases (GHG), the depletion of non-renewable resources, and the increasing amount of waste is among the most serious challenges the world is facing today
In order to determine whether and how GHG and circular economy (CE) issues are included in the sustainability reports, an analysis of the sustainability reports published by companies representing the energy sector in the European Union (EU) was carried out
The choice of the energy sector was due to the fact that this sector generates the most GHG of all sectors, and the use of the CE concept is more and more often indicated as one of the ways to reduce GHG emissions generated by energy companies and achieve climate neutrality in the EU by 2050
Summary
Climate change resulting from the emission of a significant amount of greenhouse gases (GHG), the depletion of non-renewable resources, and the increasing amount of waste is among the most serious challenges the world is facing today. Its occurrence increasingly affects people, ecosystems, and the functioning of economic operators, threatening their safety and stability For this reason, the international community is constantly looking for solutions to help reduce GHG, tackle climate change, prevent the excessive depletion of resources, and reduce the amount of waste generated. Acknowledging that climate change can have a number of serious consequences, the EU has adopted a series of ambitious climate and energy targets in recent years [2,3,4]. Their implementation will enable the EU economy to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 (i.e., it will become an economy with net zero GHG). The European Commission assumes that achieving this goal will be possible provided that the following actions are taken [4]:
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