Sustainability reporting of large companies | springerprofessional.de

The ecological and social responsibility of companies has been a topic of global politics for decades. In 2023, the EU strengthened the importance of non-financial reporting with the entry into force of the Corporate Social Reporting Directive. Interest in sustainable companies is also increasing on the capital market. However, the economic, ecological and social dimensions of corporate sustainability cannot always be reconciled. The corporate reality is characterized by conflicting objectives between the three dimensions. Research has so far been unable to develop any practical solutions for dealing with conflicting objectives in practice. The concept of New Corporate Governance could offer a new perspective. By expanding the corporate objective function to include the social preferences of shareholders and the external impacts of business activities, a new optimization calculation is created for company management and shareholders. In order to be able to make well-founded decisions, however, information must be published. The study explores the extent to which current sustainability reporting practice in Germany is compatible with the information requirements arising from New Corporate Governance.