sustainability reporting

corporate sustainability

social environmental

environmental disclosure

sustainability performance

corporate environmental

environmental sustainability

environmental social

Journal of Cleaner Production

Although sustainability development goals look for the “common good”, the question of whether macro-objectives related to the fight against poverty, gender discrimination or environmental degradation affect firms’ financial results is not easily answered. This article examines whether sustainable development goal reporting is symbolic or substantive. We specifically analyze the role this reporting plays in companies belonging to controversial and environmentally sensitive industries, where the incentives to use sustainable development goal disclosures as a symbolic strategy can be greater. This paper addresses existing research gaps by first examining the influence of sustainable development goal reporting on firm performance, and second, the effect of industry-level factors in moderating the relationship between addressing sustainable development goals in sustainability reports and corporate performance. We examine our research hypotheses with the use of a European database comprising 523 firm-year observations from 2015 to 2016. After controlling for endogeneity, our evidence reports the lack of an effect of sustainable development goal reporting on firm performance, supporting the symbolic value of this information for stakeholders. However, our main findings confirm an effect of this reporting on performance in controversial sectors, such as alcohol, gambling, tobacco, and firearms, as well as in environmentally sensitive industries. Results suggest the value-enhancement of sustainable development goal reporting only happens in companies under high social scrutiny and with stakeholders concerned about ethical and environmental issues. • This paper studies whether SDGs in sustainability reports play a symbolic or a substantive role. • Companies engage in SDG reporting as a symbolic act to address legitimacy issues and to respond to stakeholder pressure. • There is a performance effect of SDG reporting in controversial sectors as well as in environmentally sensitive industries. • In controversial and environmen...

Is SDG reporting substantial or symbolic? An examination of controversial and environmentally sensitive industries