| Abstract [eng] |
In the European Union, where climate change is an important policy area, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) was adopted in 2022 to improve the quality, transparency and comparability of information disclosed by companies. The Directive will require a much larger number of companies to provide sustainability reporting, including information on climate change. The requirements for disclosure of climate change and other sustainability-related information are set out in the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which form part of the CSRD and will ensure comparability, timeliness and mandatory reporting of information provided by companies. The new disclosure requirements are extensive and complex, and may cost companies considerable time and financial resources to comply. New European Union requirements make climate change disclosure a mandatory practice for most companies. Previously, such disclosure was voluntary and companies could choose which information to disclose and which not to, in order to present themselves positively to stakeholders and improve their reputation. Previous research has assessed which factors may determine the choice of companies to disclose information on climate change, drawing on theories of disclosure such as socio-political, information asymmetry and institutional. The focus of this paper is on climate change disclosure in corporate reporting. The aim of this paper is to examine how climate change information in company reports is in line with the EITI and what factors contribute to this. This study aimed to assess whether and to what extent companies are already disclosing climate change-related information in line with the published ETAS requirements that will be mandatory in the future, and what factors may influence the level of disclosure. The assessment covered companies in the utilities sector from different European Union countries. Firstly, a disclosure index was constructed and used to assess companies' sustainability reports using a content analysis approach. This analysis showed that, overall, companies met more than half of the ETAS requirements on climate change disclosure. Factors such as company size, profitability, leverage, liquidity and country legal frameworks were then assessed using statistical analysis methods. Correlation coefficient analysis showed that company size, profitability, leverage and liquidity have a weak relationship with the level of climate change disclosure under the ETAS. Legal regulations in the countries had a strong negative relationship with the level of disclosure in the companies considered. These results show that the choice of companies to early adopt the requirements of the new standards is not influenced by most of the factors examined. |
