IRS 2018 EnCoRe

For or against regulating non-financial reporting? This debate remains a topical issue. Indeed, non-financial reporting is a tool for informing stakeholders about companies’ social commitments. Recognizing the importance of this reporting, international organizations and governments often view the regulation of non-financial reporting as desirable.

The European Union has opted for a mandatory approach. In fact, since January¹, 2017, Directive 2014/95/EU has required European publicly traded companies, banks, and insurance companies with more than 500 employees to disclose non-financial information.

In this European context, our research project focuses on environmental information, which is a component of companies’ non-financial reporting. Using environmental data from 120 European companies collected in 2014 through a tested and updated analytical framework, we plan to collect environmental information from the same companies following the entry into force of the European directive. The objective is to measure the impact of a common regulatory framework on the level of environmental disclosure by companies that, prior to January¹, 2017, were subject to different national regulatory frameworks—whether mandatory or voluntary.

We also plan to identify the factors influencing corporate environmental communication and how they have evolved, as well as the factors influencing the choice of communication channels, at a time when integrated reporting is strongly recommended.

Our approach employs a mixed-methods methodology that combines a qualitative approach to content analysis of the identified documents with a proven quantitative methodology.
The expected results should enable us to present papers at several national and international conferences, which will then be developed into articles for submission to national and international journals.

This project is part of the “Sustainable Planet and Societies” challenge outlined in the UGA strategy. Through the planned publications and journals, it will contribute to the international visibility of theUniversité Grenoble Alpes.