Determinants of Sustainable development Goals reporting in large Portuguese companies: An Iso Certification Approach

• Autor(a) principal: Loureiro, Alice Catarina Martins
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11110/2568
• topic: Sustainable Development Goals; Sustainability Reporting; Certification; Determinant Factors; Portuguese Companies

In 2015, the United Nations approved the Agenda 2030 defining 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Among those, target 12.6 encourages companies to adopt sustainable practices and integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle. However, there is not an official and unanimous framework with specific guidance on SDGs reporting. The linkage of the SDGs to corporate reporting is still at a very embryonic stage and empirical research in this scope is scarce. Thus, there are gaps and questions to answer, such as understanding the certification's role in the SDG's reporting process. Nevertheless, organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) already described each ISO standard‘s contributions to the SDGs (ISO, 2018). So, the main purpose of this work is to understand whether ISO certification is a determinant factor in SDGs reporting of large Portuguese companies. Additionally, we will explore other potential determinant factors. We used content analysis of non-financial reports, to characterize the largest Portuguese companies concerning SDG-related disclosure, dividing the sample into two groups: the non-certified and the certificated companies. Additionally, based on a multiple linear regression model, we identified other potential determinant factors of SDGs reporting, besides the certification variable. The results showed that most mentioned SDGs were SDG12, SDG 8, SDG7 and SDG13. The less mentioned were SDG16, SDG2 and SDG10. Concerning the priority SDGs, the most mentioned were SDG8, SDG12, SDG13, SDG3 and SDG7 and the less referred were SDG1, SDG10, SDG14, SDG2 and SDG16. Contrarily to the expectations, the regression model results did not support certification as a determinant factor for SDGs disclosure. Otherwise, they supported quotation on the stock market, activity sector, the use of GRI Guidelines and external verification by a Big4 as a determinant factor for SDG disclosure in our sample.