The Role of Disability and Accessibility in Corporate Sustainability Reporting

Although companies increasingly focus on the social dimension in corporate sustainability, there seems to be a lack of understanding how and to what extent disability & accessibility (D&A) frameworks and activities are integrated in corporate sustainability reports. In this article, we aim to close this gap by a) analyzing the disability & accessibility activities from the largest 50 companies in Europe based on their corporate sustainability reports, and b) advancing a simplified conceptual framework for disability & accessibility that be used in corporate reporting. In particular, we provide an overview about corporate disability & accessibility reporting and associated activities according to three identified areas: a) workforce, b) workplace, and c) products and services. Our findings are twofold: First, the majority of the companies address disability & accessibility in their corporate sustainability reports mainly under the diversity umbrella, but lack a detailed debate about the three identified areas. Second, we found that existing frameworks for D&A are hardly used because either there are not focused on corporate reporting or seem too difficult or complicated to complete. Thus, our framework not only represents a first opportunity to foster the implementation of a disability & accessibility framework within the social dimension of corporate sustainability reports, but also presents a holistic yet flexible management tool that takes into account the most critical elements while shaping implementation, directing evaluation and encouraging future planning of D&A initiatives. This the first study that assesses the extent of D&A activities in the social dimension in corporate sustainability reporting.

Objective - The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between family ownership and corporate sustainability reporting to determine how the role of board independence affects the relationship between those variables within Malaysian listed companies. Methodology/Technique – The annual reports of 771 listed companies from 2014 to 2016 were analyzed using content analysis methods. The study uses agency theory to develop the hypotheses. Findings - The study found that family ownership is negatively related to corporate sustainability reporting. The finding shows that independent directors are unable to influence the relationship between family ownership and corporate sustainability reporting. The findings of this study are expected to provide insight to authorities in relation to the factors that could enhance corporate sustainability reporting primarily in family-owned companies. Novelty - Previous studies have only focused on environmental and social dimensions of corporate sustainability, whilst this study addresses all the 3 dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social). This paper is one of the first attempts to investigate the roles of board independence on the relationship between family ownership and corporate sustainability reporting in Malaysia. Type of Paper: Empirical. JEL Classification: M14, M41. Keywords: Sustainability Reporting; Family Ownership; Corporate Governance; Independent Director Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Aman, Z; Saleh, N; Shukur, Z.A; Jaafar, R. (2021). The Moderating Effect of Board Independence on the Relationship between Family Ownership and Corporate Sustainability Reporting in Malaysia, Accounting and Finance Review, 5(4): 31 – 43. https://doi.org/10.35609/afr.2021.5.4(4)

The application of corporate sustainability in triple bottom line has been a critical issue to enterprises. It is a future trend for enterprises working and self-discoursing on their corporate sustainability, and there are many reports about enterprises' efforts on corporate sustainability in developed economy. The research purpose of this study is (1) to explore the three different industrial sectors' context of factors of Taiwan enterprise which empathizes on corporate sustainability report in economic, environment, and social dimensions, and (2) to understand how different the leaders' viewpoints of enterprises in three different industry sectors toward corporate sustainability are, namely; finance, insurance and real estate; wholesale, retail and catering industry; transport, storage and communication industry. This study applies the text mining as a tool in the information system to explore the annual corporate sustainability reports in Taiwan. As the findings, it can learned that (1) the industrial context of Taiwan enterprises on corporate sustainability report in economic, environment, and social dimensions; and (2) there are signification differences in leaders' viewpoints in corporate sustainability report from the three different industries sector.

In the contemporary business environment, there is an increasing demand for companies to disclose information regarding their corporate sustainability practices. An increasing number of construction companies transparently publish their sustainability practices through corporate sustainability reports under the headings of economic, environmental, social and governance. In the context of current practices, construction companies publish corporate sustainability reports by using different reporting frameworks, especially in areas beyond financial aspects, including standards established by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as well as various legal obligations such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Standard (CSRS). This diversity makes it difficult to compare reported data and draw meaningful conclusions. Therefore, this research aims to simplify the reported information by reducing corporate sustainability themes to the most relevant ones for construction companies. Sustainability reporting frameworks and guidelines were examined through thematic analysis; then, the materiality and validity of sustainability themes for construction “companies were assessed using the Delphi analysis technique. Themes such as “Energy” in the environmental dimension, “Health and safety issues” in the social dimension, “Financial performance” in the economic dimension and “Board structure” in the governance dimension were identified as the corporate sustainability themes with the highest degree of impact, with an acceptable consistency ratio as a result of the analyses. As a result of the study, a reporting framework was developed consisting of a total of twenty-six themes for construction companies. The identification of material themes facilitates the integration of construction companies into the corporate sustainability reporting process and provides benefits for the innovation and sustainability of the sector

Today, the issue of corporate sustainability is noted both in academic literature and in the business environment, and there are many companies and organizations that want to make their operations sustainable and communicate different dimensions of sustainability in their business to stakeholders through sustainability reporting. This paper seeks to provide a framework for corporate sustainability reporting by reviewing existing literature on sustainability reporting, taking into account the expertise of domestic experts, to provide a roadmap for developing corporate sustainability reports in Iran. The statistical population of this study includes professionals and academics, including university teachers and post- graduate students in business majors. Our sample was determined via judgment sampling and data was obtained through 119 designed questionnaires. The results of this research is summarized in a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Framework for Iran, which is developed based on Seven research questions related to preparers of sustainability reports; determinants of sustainability reporting; the content of sustainability reports; corporate governance mechanisms necessary for sustainability reporting; challenges and risks with regard to sustainability reporting; benefits of sustainability reports; and assurance of sustainability reports.

Corporate sustainability reporting is currently a prominent issue in the global business world, with companies worldwide actively publishing sustainability reports to meet the demands of different stakeholders regarding social, environmental, economic, and governance concerns. The existing literature has proved that companies that participate aggressively in corporate sustainability reporting tend to have higher firm value, experience tremendous growth rates in terms of size and profitability, have a high capital and asset base, are lowly geared, and gain a competitive edge in the industry in which they operate. The study examines the link between corporate sustainability reporting and the financial performance of firms listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange. Corporate governance, social, environmental, and economic pillars were used as indicators of corporate sustainability reporting. The Global Reporting Initiative framework will be employed to establish the corporate sustainability reporting scores and construct the sustainability reporting index. Financial performance was measured by return on assets. The study is anchored on the stakeholder theory supported by legitimacy and the tripled bottom-line theories. The target population comprises sixty-seven companies listed in Kenya. Secondary data was collected from the company integrated reports, published accounts, and the accounts filed with the Nairobi Securities Exchange for the period 2011 to 2020. The study adopted a cross-sectional correlational research design. Descriptive statistical tests carried out include mean, standard deviation, kurtosis and skewness. Correlation analysis was done to test and establish the direction of the relationship between the study variables. Regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses of the study. Generally, the study findings are that corporate sustainability reporting had a significant positive effect on financial performance. The empirical results of this study showed that corporate sustainability reporting led to improved financial performance among listed companies, although sustainability reporting in Kenya was purely voluntary. Therefore, Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority should consider making corporate sustainability reporting compulsory for all listed companies. Further research can be extended to include non-listed companies and the application of other sustainability reporting frameworks. Keywords: Corporate Sustainability Reporting, Financial Performance, Global Reporting Initiative, Nairobi Securities Exchange.

This case traces UPS's first corporate sustainability report (CSR), “Operating in Unison,” from its origins up to its publication in 2006. It is based on interviews with managers who championed and shaped the report internally. UPS took its CSR quite seriously, basing its reporting and goals on the more stringent Global Reporting Indices (GRIs) as opposed to merely complying with U.S. regulations. Soon after going public, UPS was significantly expanding its European operations; it followed that its CSR ultimately took the form of many European CSRs, addressing the relationships among financial performance, environmental sustainability, and engaging stakeholders such as employees and the community. By 2008, some form of CSR would become routine in the United States. Yet not all CSRs are created equal; the case includes copious examples from UPS's first report, with key performance indicators in all categories. Given UPS's employee-centered culture, the company debated how much internal information to report. UPS also has an engineering culture whose innovative thinking helped align its business model with efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint. UPS managers and employees are invariably motivated by “doing the right thing”—a phenomenon increasingly found in strong brands. UPS's reporting grew out of its culture. Yet a major topic for our times is how to manage reputational risk, especially when these risks are inherent to the business. As corporate social responsibility gains public attention, will first-movers such as UPS be rewarded for taking CSR seriously?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to measure Garanti Bank’s corporate sustainability performance along with the main indicators of economic, social and environmental factors, taking into consideration of the governance indicators.Design/methodology/approachRecent global economic developments indicate that the main corporate sustainability indicators of economic, environmental and social factors are insufficient for the sustainability practices of the companies. Along with these indicators, a good administrative structure should be evaluated as a whole to measure the sustainability performance. For measuring corporate sustainability performance of the bank along with the economic, environmental, social and governance dimensions of corporate sustainability, content analysis, entropy and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) methods are used with a total of four corporate sustainability reports published by Garanti Bank within the period of 2010-2014.FindingsThe results depict that the sustainability performance of Garanti Bank tends to increase during the time span. Among all dimensions, economic dimension has the highest impact on overall sustainability performance, as it has the highest weight in entropy. On contrary, governance dimension has the lowest impact on overall performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper has implications in enhancing the understanding of corporate sustainability measurement both using content analysis, and TOPSIS particularly in a developing country, although it is limited by the size of the corporate sustainability reports and time span.Originality/valueThis paper attempts to reveal an emerging banking sector specific corporate sustainability materiality. This is the first study in Turkey which includes both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques considering the content analysis and TOPSIS.

The need to provide stakeholders with the information whether the corporate sustainability obligations imposed on business have been met or not, necessitated environmental and social data to be reported and presented alongside financial information relating to operating activities.This study puts forth conceptual explanations related to sustainability, and sustainability reporting framework for sustainability reporting, organizations and indexes, and then reveals the sustainability reporting situation in Turkey. To this end, in line with data in the corporate sustainability portal as of May 2015, corporate sustainability reports in Turkey were analysed. According to the data obtained from this portal, a total of 181 corporate sustainability reports were published by 72 organizations in Turkey between the years 2005-2014. 130 of these reports were based on the GRI reporting guidelines.This study on corporate sustainability reporting contains 26 benchmarks related to organizations issuing reports and the reports themselves. In this study, sector distribution of the organizations issuing corporate sustainability reports, their sizes, publicity, availability on the stock market, the number of employees, turnover, GRI OS (Global Reporting Initiative - Organizational Stakeholders) membership, UNGC (United Nations Global Compact) membership and types of issued corporate sustainability reports, the release years, the reporting periods, the report language, GRI application levels, GRI application statements, reference, auditing, audit providers, industry attachment, stakeholder panel/expert opinion have been identified as the criteria.

Large companies now commonly release corporate sustainability (CS) reports in which they describe their approach to handle sustainability challenges. To guide environmental sustainability efforts in the industry, the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology has been recognized as an important tool by researchers and policy makers. But to what extent has the LCA methodology been present in companies' narratives through their CS reports up to now? To answer this question, we map references to the LCA methodology in CS reports over the past two decades at geographical, sectoral, and company levels through keyword searching within an extensive database (~45,000 CS reports), analyze trends, and highlight challenges, opportunities, and recommendations to strengthen the presence of LCA in CS reports. The results show that LCA generally remains weakly present in CS reporting, with some geographical and sectoral variations. Recommendations to strengthen LCA presence in CS reports are derived for method developers, policy makers, and companies.

Ups and Corporate Sustainability: Proactively Managing Risk

The increasing importance of sustainability reporting requires a deeper understanding of how companies communicate their sustainability efforts across regions and sectors. This study focuses on China and the United States as subjects. By analyzing corporate sustainability reports from these two major economies in 2022, it evaluates the effects of regional and sectoral differences on sustainable practices, with the aim of deepening the understanding of organizational sustainability. Using topic modeling, this study identified the key topics and patterns that companies in the two countries prioritize in their corporate sustainability reporting. A bag-of-words approach was adopted to analyze the attitudes of corporations in two countries toward environmental, social, and governance dimensions, with a focus on sector-specific differences. Finally, sentiment analysis with ClimateBERT assessed the tone of the reports. The findings reveal similarities and sector-specific differences in corporate sustainability reporting between China and the United States, as well as displaying divergent emphases on climate-related risks and opportunities. This study offers a multi-method approach to evaluating corporate sustainability reporting, contributing to a better understanding of sustainability practices in different national and industrial contexts, and offering effective guidance for actual industry regulators and stakeholders.

This empirical analysis examines the relationship between corporate sustainability reporting and financial performance among Indian listed companies. In recent years, sustainability has gained prominence in corporate strategy due to increasing regulatory requirements, investor interest, and stakeholder expectations. The study explores how sustainability reporting, as disclosed through corporate sustainability reports (CSR), affects the financial performance of companies. Using a sample of Indian companies listed on major stock exchanges, the study analyzes data on sustainability disclosures, financial performance indicators (such as return on assets, return on equity, and market valuation), and various control variables. The analysis employs statistical methods, including regression models, to identify the correlation and potential causal linkages between sustainability reporting and financial performance. The findings suggest a positive relationship between comprehensive sustainability reporting and financial performance, indicating that companies with better sustainability practices tend to experience higher financial returns and market valuation. The results also highlight the role of regulatory frameworks, industry-specific factors, and company size in shaping the strength of this relationship. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on corporate sustainability by providing insights specific to the Indian context, where sustainability reporting practices are evolving. It suggests that companies engaging in transparent and detailed sustainability reporting may achieve not only environmental and social benefits but also financial gains, making sustainability a strategic priority for long-term value creation.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to explore the linkages between corporate sustainability reporting and public policy. Interviews with experts from 35 different Canadian corporations that produce a sustainability report were held to address this issue. The interviews specifically focused on exploring how public policy influences sustainability reporting, investigating how corporate sustainability reporting influences public policy, and identifying the barriers to linking sustainability reporting with public policy. The majority of participants explained that their corporation's sustainability reporting has not been heavily influenced by public policy. Even in the relatively few cases where the participating corporations were required to report on sustainability‐related information (i.e. financial and insurance companies), there was little indication that public policy was strongly considered in reporting. Although several participants felt that their sustainability reports could or should influence public policy, there were also indications that corporations are looking for additional guidance on reporting from government. In fact, the lack of direction from government was cited as a key barrier to improved linkages between corporate sustainability reporting and public policy. Future research should focus on addressing this problem, particularly at the individual sector level. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Purpose Retail investors have a significant role to play in transitioning economies to a more sustainable future, yet their participation remains limited. Drawing on insights from nudge theory and behavioural finance, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether an environmental, social and governance (ESG) nudge, embedded within corporate sustainability reports, influences the investment decisions of retail investors. Design/methodology/approach An investment decision experiment is used to evaluate the effect of a simplified, commensurated score (the ESG nudge) on retail investors’ ability to distinguish between companies based on sustainability attributes and on their subsequent capital allocation decisions. Findings The ESG nudge significantly increases investment in companies with stronger sustainability attributes. In contrast, the same information expressed in less readable textual disclosures does not produce a comparable effect. These findings suggest that disclosure format plays a critical role in determining how sustainability information is perceived and used by retail investors. Practical implications To enhance sustainable investment outcomes, sustainability standard setters should consider not only the content but also the presentation format of ESG disclosures. Commensurated, easy-to-interpret indicators may be more effective than detailed but complex textual narratives in guiding retail investor behaviour. Social implications Disclosure of effective ESG nudges within corporate sustainability reports could enhance the efficiency of sustainable finance markets and contribute to a more sustainable future. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to test whether an ESG nudge, embedded within corporate sustainability reports, influences the investment decisions of retail investors. The findings suggest that behavioural interventions within existing disclosure mechanisms can enhance retail investor engagement in sustainable finance. The development and reporting of standardised ESG nudges may offer a valuable complement to corporate sustainability reporting and future mandated textual disclosures.