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In recent times, stakeholders have called on corporate organizations especially those charged with governance to embrace full disclosure on non-financial issues, especially sustainability reporting. Based on this premise, this study aims to examine the influence of corporate board and assurance on sustainability reporting practices (SRP) of selected 80 firms from 8 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

To measure the corporate board, the authors use both board variables and audit committee variables. Also, the authors adapted the sustainability score model as used by previous authors in the field of sustainability disclosure to measure SRPs. The analysis was done using both ordered logistic regression and probit regression models.

The results show that the combination of board corporate and assurance has a positive and significant impact on the sustainability reporting practice of selected firms in sub-Saharan Africa.

The study places emphasis on the need for strong collaboration between the corporate board and external assurance in evaluating and enhancing the quality of sustainability disclosure.

The study bridged the gap in the literature in the area of corporate board, assurance and SRP of corporate firms which has received little attention within sub-Saharan Africa.

There are still many different theoretical approaches and practical interpretations about what an integrated report is. Starting from this premise, the overall purpose of this chapter is to critically analyze the relationship between integrated reporting (IR) and social/sustainability disclosure. Indeed, although some scholars considered IR as a tool to improve the sustainability approach of the companies allowing to disclose more relevant social information, others are more critical about the potentiality of IR to improve social disclosure. Therefore, the general research question is: Is there a natural link between IR and social disclosure (true love) or is the IR a practice to “normalize” the social disclosure and accounting (forced marriage)?

In the attempt to provide a preliminary answer to the research question, the chapter analyzes what is the approach of three categories: (1) academics; (2) soft-regulators; and (3) companies. From the methodological point of view, a mixed method of analysis has been adopted.

From the analysis of the three different points of view, IR can be considered as a “contested concept” because of the heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting interpretations and implementation that are done on this type of report. This leads to relevant theoretical and practical implications.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and determinants of sustainability performance disclosures reported by publicly traded companies in Kazakhstan by using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework. Among the different possible determinants, stand-alone sustainability reporting (SR), reporting language, leverage, cash flow capacity, profitability, size, age and auditor type were selected to investigate their impacts on the quality and scope of sustainability information.

The study analyzes data from publicly traded companies at the Kazakhstani Stock Exchange for the years 2013–2015. To investigate the extent, nature and quality of sustainability reports, the study measures and analyzes economic, environmental and social performance parameters, as suggested in the GRI guidelines.

The results indicate that determinants such as stand-alone reporting, reporting language, firm profitability, firm size and auditor type substantially influence the extent, nature and quality of sustainability-reporting practices of Kazakhstani companies.

The findings of the study suggest that managers, practitioners, regulators and policy makers in emerging economies should adopt the GRI guidelines to report sustainability performance disclosures and focus on specific factors to improve the quality of sustainability disclosures.

This study is one of the first studies to investigate the extent, nature and possible determinants of corporate SR in central Asian-emerging economies.

Nowadays, social and environmental reporting is approached in different ways, paths and fields by either large-, small-, or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, as demonstrated by previous scholars, SMEs have been critically discussed because they provide lack of proper sustainability disclosure. The fact that the predominant approach of SMEs toward social responsibility is often “sunken” and not “explicit” can drive the lack of disclosure. Furthermore, unstructured communication practices create difficulties in measuring and reporting the sustainability reporting phenomenon in SMEs. The aim of our study is to shed light on the activity of SMEs’ sustainability reporting and disclosure, specifically, by addressing the variables that influence the choice of the guidelines used to prepare sustainability reports.

The research has been carried out by using qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The empirical evidence is based on all the Italian companies, mostly SMEs, that were certified in 2011 as having adopted both environmental (i.e., ISO14001 or EMAS) and social (i.e., SA8000) management systems. A multivariate linear regression model has been developed to address the influence of several variables (i.e., financial performance, size, time after achievement of the certifications, group/conglomerate control, etc.) on the guidelines’ choice for preparing sustainability reports.

Our findings demonstrate that SMEs prefer to use simple guidelines such as those guidelines that are mandatory under management system certifications. However, the sustainability disclosure driven by the adoption of international guidelines may be more complex if the SME is controlled within a group of companies or if a significant amount of time has passed since the certification date. As such, we developed a taxonomy of their different behavioral drivers according to a legitimacy theory approach.

At this stage, our study didn’t focus on the contents’ quality of the disclosure and reporting practices adopted by SMEs, which is obviously a worthwhile and important area for further research. Furthermore, the analysis took into account the impact of a number of easily accessible variables; therefore, it can be extended to investigate the effect on disclosure of other relevant variables (i.e., nature of the board of directors, age, and industrial sector in which the company operates) as well as contexts prevailing in other countries.

The study represents an important contribution for understanding how and why managers might use externally focused disclosure on social and environmental issues to benefit the company’s legitimacy.

Our study provides interesting insights for policy makers who require social or environmental certification when calling for tenders or specific EU contracts, in order to put aside the “brand” or “symbol” and really focus on the disclosed practices.

Previous studies have provided only a few evidence about reporting practices and related influencing features of SMEs’ sustainability actions. As such, the study wishes to make a significant contribution to the existing literature on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by providing relevant insights about the factors which influence the guidelines used by SMEs in preparing their sustainability reports.

This study aims to construct two environmental disclosure indices (EDI), one obtained from the mandatory reporting (annual report) and the other from the voluntary reporting (sustainability report), to compare their evolution. In addition, the authors developed and evaluated a conceptual model that aims to analyse if the two EDI are affected by industry, environmental certification, lucratively and corporate governance attributes. The legitimacy, signalling and voluntary disclosure theories are used to support the theoretical relationship between the company’s characteristics, corporate governance and environmental disclosure.

Using the content analysis technique, the authors have developed two indices to assess the level of environmental disclosure in the companies’ mandatory and voluntary reporting. In addition, to analyse the determinants of EDI, the authors applied the technique of multiple linear regression using panel data.

Based on Portuguese listed companies (Euronext-Lisbon), the results, from 2015 to 2017, exhibited an increase of 14.6% and 25.8% for the EDI obtained from the annual reports and for EDI obtained from the sustainability reporting, respectively. In addition, the results revealed that the environmental certification, lucratively, number of members on board and number and proportion of women of the board directors tend to affect the annual reporting EDI. Regarding the sustainability reporting EDI, the results showed that the environmental certification, lucratively and proportion of independent members of the board of directors have an impact on it.

The study focuses on quantitative rather than qualitative disclosures and it brings some insights to the theoretical field.

The results obtained can assist corporate decision-making processes regarding the improvement of environmental disclosure, both on the mandatory annual report and on voluntary sustainability reports.

This study brings new perspectives to this topical issue in accounting. Originally, this study is applied to Portuguese listed companies and it shows different trends and determinants of environmental disclosure when included in the annual reporting or sustainability reporting.

In this study, the authors provide a systematic literature review of articles in the emerging areas of green finance and discuss the status and challenges in sustainability disclosure, which is crucial for the efficiency of green financial instruments. The authors then review the literature on the economic implications of green finance and outline future research directions.

The authors use the analytical framework – Search, Appraisal, Synthesis, and Analysis (SALSA) to conduct the systematic review of the literature.

Increasing public attention to the environment motivates the use of green finance to fund environmentally sustainable projects, and the rise of green finance intensifies the demand for environmental disclosure. Literature has documented tremendous growth in sustainability reporting over time and around the globe, as well as raised concerns about how such reporting lack consistency, comparability, and assurance. Despite these challenges, the authors find that in general, the literature agrees that a firm’s green practice is positively associated with its financial performance and negatively related to a firm’s cost of capital. Green finance is also found to bring about enhanced risk management and economic development.

The authors provide one of the first reviews of green finance, sustainability disclosure and the impact of green finance on financial performance, capital market and economic development.

The study aims to improve the understanding of the online sustainability disclosure phenomena considering the quantity and nature of the content of the information related to sustainability disclosed in the corporate website of companies, providing evidence about the website sustainability disclosure of different size companies and characterizing the website sustainability disclosure of the Portuguese mold companies.

A content analysis methodology was used to the corporate websites of 83 companies in the sample. A direct approach was followed where the researcher is asked to read and classify the text in a previously defined category, but where the possibility of identifying new categories from the collected data is not excluded.

The information on sustainability disclosed by the mold companies is limited, whether in quantity or concerning the type of information. The information disclosed about environmental and social aspects is scarcer, being the focus more on aspects related to the economic dimension of sustainability, particularly in the areas related to products and services and customers.

The research design can be broadened to include other sustainability dissemination tools and other research methodologies, such as case studies, to provide a deeper understanding of the concerns and initiatives/practices of sustainability of mold companies.

This study contributes to the knowledge of sustainability dissemination practices in SMEs, an area of research that needs to be more explored and, in an industrial sector (molds) that have not received much attention in this area.

Based on the premise of the importance of corporate sustainability communication, the study focuses on the Internet as an information dissemination tool. It provides indications on the theme and information type that can be used to report the company's sustainability.

This study explores the scope, materiality and extent of environmental and social sustainability disclosure – as benchmarked against the Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI-G4) – of the top 10 logistics firms operating in Australia. It also investigates the relationships between the extent of environmental and social sustainability disclosure of these firms and their actual financial performance.

The authors adopted an inductive case study approach for an in-depth investigation of the relationships among concepts. A content analysis of the firms' sustainability reports was performed to determine their pattern and extent of sustainability disclosure against the GRI framework. A disclosure–performance analysis (DPA) matrix was employed to relate the extent of environmental and social sustainability disclosure of these 10 firms with their actual financial performance (i.e. return on assets [ROA] and total revenue growth).

This study found that the extent of sustainability reporting was relatively high on the labour practices and decent work subgroup, followed by the environmental dimension of the GRI-G4 framework. However, it was relatively low on the society, human rights and product responsibility subgroups of the GRI framework. The DPA revealed that “Leaders” (firms with higher sustainability disclosure levels) achieved significantly higher ROA. However, “Opportunists” (firms with lower sustainability disclosure levels) achieved higher levels of financial returns (i.e. ROA and total revenue growth) with less attention to sustainability issues, which contradicts the win-win view of the sustainability disclosure–financial performance relationship.

First, this study contributes an in-depth review of sustainability disclosure practices of top logistics firms operating in Australia. Second, using DPA, it identifies the novel effects of environmental and social sustainability disclosure levels on these firms' financial performance. It also sheds further light on the potential effect of investments beyond substantial profitability for sustainability growth and corporate governance on the sustainability disclosure–financial performance relationship.

This chapter reviews the context of sustainability reporting law and regulations worldwide. Based on the discussion, a conceptual framework has been developed to investigate the moderating role of sustainability reporting law (SRL) on the relationship between sustainability reporting and firm's performance. The findings reveal that the inclusion of SRL as a moderating variable positively affects the relationships between the E, S and G components and operational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of corporate sustainability reporting on firm performance in four Asian countries – Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and India – and to find out whether there is any significant difference between developed and developing countries of Asia with respect to the impact of such reporting on firm performance.

The study is based on 36 listed nonfinancial companies from Japan, 28 from India, 26 from South Korea and 21 from Indonesia respectively, from 2009 to 2014. Content analysis (binary −0 and 1) is used to calculate the disclosure score of sustainability performance, based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) format. The outcome of the content analysis is further used to examine the impact of corporate sustainability reporting on firm performance employing a logistic regression model.

The study finds that the average level of disclosure is more in the case of Japanese companies (90 per cent), followed by India (88 per cent) and South Korea (85 per cent). On the other hand, the average level of disclosure is only 72 per cent for Indonesian firms. Regression results depict a significant positive association between sustainability reporting and firm’s performance. The study further finds that the relative impact of sustainability reporting on firm performance is more in developed countries than in developing countries of Asia.

This is the first comprehensive study in Asian context to examine the impact of the level of corporate sustainability disclosure on the firm performance by using the logistic regression model. The outcome of this study would not only help the corporate managers but also the policymakers to make a valuable decision, which will eventually contribute to the objectives of sustainable development.