European SMEs and non-financial information on sustainability

ABSTRACT

The goal of this paper is to study non-financial information disclosed by European SMEs as a way to identify sustainability risks.

We analyze a sample of all the voluntary non-financial reports disclosed according to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards for European SMEs from 2016 to 2019.

We obtain that the reports are made voluntarily with basic adherence to GRI and without external assurance. It means that European SMEs choose the basic option to divulge information on sustainability what can not include the identification of sustainability risks.

In the current momentum of discussion about non-financial information normalization in Europe the obtained conclusions can be useful to bear in mind SMEs´ specificities.

Social implications of requirements of sustainability information to European companies are clear when every company has to add efforts to contribute to a sustainable economy.

Nowadays, when non-financial information is compulsory in Europe for certain companies and there is a discussion about the scope of this requirement, it is important to note that SMEs are the backbone of the European economy and that this information on sustainability risks can be a benchmark worldwide.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-financial information
• sustainability risks
• European SMEs
• disclosure
• GRI
• assurance
• sustainability information

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

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