| Abstract [eng] |
Corporate sustainability is becoming an increasingly important topic as the evaluation of companies not only in terms of their financial performance or performance indicators, but also in terms of sustainable performance, is gaining momentum. In order to inform stakeholders about their sustainability performance, comapnies prepare sustainability reports. Sustainability reports are documents that provide information on a company‘s sustainability practices, performance and impact on the environment and society. They typically cover environmental, social and governance issues. They are important because they provide transparency, accountability, risk management, competitive advantage and help companies to comply with legal requirements relating to their sustainability practices and performance. Equally important is their quality. A high-quality sustainability report ensures that stakeholders are provided with correct, reliable and transparent information on which they can make informed decisions. To ensure the quality of sustainability reporting, it is important for companies to know what factors influence and determine it. The aim of this paper is to identify the influence of certain factors on the quality of sustainability reporting in the energy sector (oil and gas). There are many such factors, so this paper focuses on those that are most relevant and important. The object of the study is therefore the factors that determine the quality of corporate sustainability reports. The study is carried out using Pearson correlation, univariate, multivariate and multiple regressions. These models are chosen to assess the relationship and its strength, as well as to determine the positive or negative impact, between the quality of sustainability reporting and the selected factors. Finally, the most appropriate model for assessing the quality of sustainability reporting of companies in the energy sector (oil and gas) is identified in terms of which factors are most significant. The study shows that most of the factors have the same impact on the quality of the sustainability reports of companies in the energy sector (oil and gas) as those of companies in other sectors. In particular, larger companies, and those with one of the Big Four companies as their external auditor, produce higher quality sustainability reports. The size of the board, the independence of its members and the number of women on it also contribute to higher quality sustainability reporting, as do the audit and social responsibility committees established within the company. As regards financial indicators, no significant correlation was found between the quality of sustainability reporting and the values of leverage and profitability indicators. However, the results showed that a higher value of the revenue growth indicator indicates a higher quality of sustainability reporting. As the data used for this study is limited to a sample based on certain criteria, further studies could extend this sample or introduce other criteria to observe how the level of influence of the factors and the strength of the correlations with the quality of the sustainability reports changes or does not change. |
