Sustainability reporting in focus: analysing Spanish transposition of the Non-Financial Reporting European Directive in the agri-food sector

Abstract

In recent decades, the business world has undergone a paradigm shift, prioritizing social and environmental considerations over the exclusive pursuit of economic profits. Corporate social responsibility has become an essential practice, and Sustainability reports (SRs) play a crucial role in facilitating the disclosure of these practices. In the European Union (EU), Directive 2014/95/EU (Non-Financial Reporting Directive—NFRD) was enacted to compel companies to disclose information on matters addressing social, environmental, ethical, and corporate governance aspects. Spain transposed this directive through Law 11/2018, considered one of the strictest in the EU. This study aims to explore and analyse its impact on the agri-food sector. For this purpose, the SRs of 16 agri-food companies that used the Global reporting initiative standard before and after the enforcement of Law 11/2018 were evaluated applying content analysis along with repeated measures ANOVA. The results show a low level of disclosure for both periods and that Law 11/2018 does not succeed in improving the level of disclosure. This suggests that legislators should develop regulations that ensure the usefulness of the disclosed information and that companies should be more involved in the preparation of SRs.