Non-financial reporting standards and evaluation of their use illustrated with example of Polish listed companies

Abstract

The introduction of the obligation to publish non-financial data has been awaited by stakeholders for a long time. This obligation has been in effect since the beginning of 2017 for selected companies listed on the stock exchange, i.e. Public Interest Entities (PIEs). The paper attempts to assess the current state of non-financial reporting based on the standards used by PIEs in the first year of its validity. The authors attempted to assess the new reporting obligation and put forward the following main hypothesis: Polish listed companies, and in particular, public interest entities are not prepared to implement the provisions of the Accounting Act, which is the transposition of Directive 2014/95/EU. The research provided evidence that the highest percentage of com- panies reported on the basis of GRI standards and other combinations of GRI, GRI G4, SIN, and more than half of the companies proposed their own principles or did not specify them. The research showed the multidimen- sionality of actions taken by companies in the context of non-financial reporting. Introduction