Sustainability Impact, Risk Disclosure and Environmental Performance in Sustainability Reports

Dear Colleagues,

The principles of a sustainable development include the design of human systems, taking into account ecological and social limits of carrying capacity and scientific principles. The Earth’s ecosystems must remain intact in their assimilation, buffering, and regenerative capacity in order to enable human life and economic activity in the long term. This also includes the design of socially resilient structures and economically more resistant systems. Sustainability value creation aims at quality, is geared to long life and use phases, and addresses a change in consumer patterns (Arnold, 2018). Sustainability reporting, meanwhile, is an appropriate tool to communicate, manage, and legitimize sustainability activities within and beyond organizational borders (Dienes et al., 2016). There are several non-financial reporting tools, such as GRI, the German Sustainability Code, UN Global Compacts, etc., having different stakeholder perspectives, goal orientation, indicators or risk disclosure. Sustainability reports are still vividly and controversially discussed. Their depth and justification vary depending on the areas in which they are applied, such as business, education, administration or political organizations. Traceability and green and social washing are still big issues and closely linked to indicators and environmental performance (Doan and Sassen, 2020).

Environmental performance is important for guiding (i) sustainable consumption and (ii) sustainable production and value chains. Through a transparency of environmental performance of products, services, as well as processes and strategies, conscious green consumption is enabled (La Soa Nguyen and Manh Dung Tran, 2019). Moreover, companies and organizations are empowered to govern and manage sustainability-related processes and transitions based on clear indicators. An increase of green or sustainable consumption might boost organizational competitive advantage or impact stock prices as well (e.g., Foulon et al., 2002). At least, focusing on environmental performance in a qualitative and/or quantitative way organizations and companies raise awareness and resources to environmental or sustainable issues and, thus, foster change toward sustainability. Information-based tools enable data, interaction, and dialogue within companies as well as among businesses, consumers, stakeholders, and politicians. However, that does not mean companies and organizations automatically implement environmental performance indicators or develop toward more sustainability (Mosgaard and Kristensen, 2020).

Thus, effective risk assessment and a pure analysis of sustainability risks are necessary as well and should be part of sustainability reporting. However, sustainability risks are hardly considered and discussed and rather underrepresented (Truant et al., 2017). While SGDs are increasingly integrated into sustainability reporting, sustainability risks and issues of the global risk report rarely find integration. Thus, it is of pivotal interest to identify how risk disclosure takes place in sustainability reporting.

This Special Issue invites various scholars to explore research from different perspectives offering new insights into creative approaches and systemic thinking as well as innovative processes for dealing with the sustainability impact, risk disclosure, and environmental performance in sustainability reports. Conceptual and theoretical as well as empirical and inter- and transdisciplinary papers are equally welcome. We encourage authors to apply innovative approaches as well as practical examples and viewpoints. The Special Issue is focused on but not limited to the following topics:

• Progress and trends in sustainability (risk) reporting;
• Sustainability risk, risk management, and risk disclosure in reporting;
• Motives and drivers in sustainability (risk) reporting;
• Complexities and trade-offs in sustainability (risk) disclosure and corporate legitimacy;
• Sustainability risk assessment tools;
• Quality of sustainability risk disclosure and sustainability reports;
• Sustainability risk reporting across different industries and contexts;
• Sustainability risk reporting, corporate reputation, public perception, and market valuation;
• Sustainability reporting, risk disclosure, and stakeholder groups;
• Sustainability risk reporting and corporate environmental and social responsibility;
• Impact and outcome of environmental performance;
• Sustainability (risk) reporting and implications for corporate environmental and social value creation processes, practices of corporate sustainability and business models.

References

Arnold, M.G. Sustainability value creation in frugal contexts to foster Sustainable Development Goals. Bus. Strat. Dev. 2018, 1, 265–275, doi:10.1002/bsd2.36.

Dienes, D.; Sassen, R.; Fischer, J. What are the drivers of sustainability reporting? A systematic review. Sustain. Accounting, Manag. Policy J. 2016, 7, 154–189, doi:10.1108/sampj-08-2014-0050.

Doan, M.H.; Sassen, R. The relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: A meta-analysis. J. Ind. Ecol. 2020, 1–38, doi:10.1111/jiec.13002.

Foulon, J.; Lanoie, P.; Laplante, B. Incentives for Pollution Control: Regulation or Information? J. Environ. Econ. Manag. 2002, 44, 169–187, doi:10.1006/jeem.2001.1196.

Mosgaard, M.A.; Kristensen, H.S. Companies that discontinue their ISO14001 certification – Reasons, consequences and impact on practice. J. Clean. Prod. 2020, 260, 121052. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121052.

Nguyen, L.S.; Tran, M.D. Disclosure levels of environmental accounting information and financial performance: The case of Vietnam. Manag. Sci. Lett. 2019, 9, 557–570. doi:10.5267/j.msl.2019.1.007.

Truant, E.; Corazza, L.; Scagnelli, S.D. Sustainability and Risk Disclosure: An Exploratory Study on Sustainability Reports. Sustainability 2017, 9, 636, doi:10.3390/su9040636.

Prof. Dr. Marlen Gabriele Arnold
Prof. Dr. Remmer Sassen
Dr. Katja Beyer
Guest Editors

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• environmental performance
• risk disclosure
• sustainability impact
• sustainability report
• accountability