Assessing the Maturity of Sustainable Business Model and Strategy Reporting under the CSRD Shadow

Niki Glaveli (), Maria Alexiou, Apostolos Maragos, Anastasia Daskalopoulou and Viktoria Voulgari
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Niki Glaveli: Department of Business Administration, University of the Aegean, 82132 Chios, Greece
Maria Alexiou: CSR Hellas, 10679 Athens, Greece
Apostolos Maragos: CSR Hellas, 10679 Athens, Greece
Anastasia Daskalopoulou: Department of Business Administration, University of the Aegean, 82132 Chios, Greece
Viktoria Voulgari: Department of Business Administration, University of the Aegean, 82132 Chios, Greece

JRFM, 2023, vol. 16, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: The present work is amongst the few that attempt to critically assess the maturity of Business Model (BM) and strategy disclosures of listed firms under the shadow of the new EU reporting directive, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The novel Practices Evaluation Approach (PEA), developed recently by the Project Task Force on Reporting of Non-Financial Risks and Opportunities (PTF-RNFRO), offers the evaluation framework for this assessment. The PEA delineates and evaluates the maturity of BM and strategy disclosures against qualitative characteristics and content elements drawn from well-accepted, financial and non-financial, reporting frameworks, standards and directives (including the CSRD). Therefore, the PEA provides the advantage of a contemporary and integrated/holistic assessment tool. Specifically, the following seven evaluation criteria are used for the assessment: clarity and comprehensiveness of the overall BM, strategy disclosure, disclosure of the BM’s potential across-time horizons and its dependencies, impacts on sustainability issues, material sustainability issues that are likely to affect the company’s performance, the BM’s exposure to sustainability risks and sustainability opportunities, and sustainability strategy, targets, KPIs and their monitoring and progress. The analysis covered 30 CSR/sustainability reports and connected documents of listed companies operating in 6 key sectors of the Greek economy, i.e., information technology, construction, tourism and transportation, cosmetics, banking and energy. The results of our analysis offer evidence that BM reporting is not holistically developed (i.e., critical components are missing), and the level of development varies across the examined sectors. Moreover, sustainability risks are more stressed, in relevance to opportunities, whilst positive (rather than negative) impacts are mainly disclosed. Also, the quantification of sustainability risks and opportunities does not appear frequently, whilst the interconnections between sustainability strategy and companies’ financial objectives is relatively restricted. The paper concludes by pointing out some critical hints useful for enhancing the maturity of BM and strategy disclosures.

Keywords: sustainable business models; business model and strategy reporting/disclosure; maturity of business model and strategy reporting/disclosure; practices evaluation approach; EFRAG; Greece (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C E F2 F3 G (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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