Regulating Sustainability Reporting in Europe: De Jure Harmonisation or De Facto Standardisation?

ABSTRACT

The paper aims to contribute to the debate about sustainability reporting through an evidence-based analysis of the contribution of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to the standardisation of the non-financial disclosures prepared by the Italian public interest entities (PIEs). For the purpose of this study, we considered a sample of Italian PIEs affected by the effects of the Directive 2014/95/EU during the period 2017-2020. Following previous studies about financial accounting harmonisation, the analysis was built using the Herfindahl index (H-Index) and Comparability index (C-Index). The analysis reveals that the GRI standards contributed to achieving a higher degree of harmonisation. Furthermore, the analysis underlines an isomorphic approach related to the disclosure of non-financial information on a mandatory basis. Despite common legal requirements, we found virtuous companies voluntarily adopted a more sophisticated reporting approach to signal their orientation to sustainable and ethical paradigms.

Keywords:

• Herfindahl index
• Comparability Index
• Global Reporting Initiative
• Directive 2014/95/EU

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.