Materiality in Sustainability Reporting
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 May 2022) | Viewed by 7425
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Sustainability has become a central societal consideration, thereby affecting industry and organizational competitiveness, and leading to investors increasing demand for information on firms’ exposure and management of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. As a result, firms face increasing pressure to measure their externalities and disclose information about whether their operations are economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. Industry bodies such as the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) actively promote and recommend that firms’ disclosure focuses more on ESG issues that directly affect their bottom line. Although materiality forms the conceptual bedrock of financial reporting, it is only recently, with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board’s (SASB) framework, that concrete and industry-specific guidelines to integrate financial materiality in ESG reporting has been brought forward. Because investment practices are deeply rooted in the financial logic of shareholder value, despite its social, environmental and ethical goals, financial materiality became one of the most important shifts in sustainability reporting. Financial materiality is assumed to improve the informativeness of ESG reporting as it directs firms, investors and other stakeholders’ attention to ESG risks and opportunities that are critical to their business. Moreover, the financial materiality of ESG issues offers a latent explanation for why there has been so much inconclusive evidence of the ESG–financial performance relationship in previous research. From a practical perspective, financial materiality can bridge the gap between financial statements and ESG reporting. These aspects reinforce the relevance of better understanding the drivers and the effects of integrating financial materiality in ESG assessment and reporting, which is the objective of this Special Issue.
Some sample questions to guide submissions include, but are not limited to:
- Does the financial materiality of ESG issues influence the ESG–financial performance relationship?
- What are the mechanisms, practices, and tactics to assess and report on financial material ESG issues?
- How do material and immaterial ESG issues affect stakeholder engagement?
- How does financial materiality in ESG reporting impact investors’ decision making?
- Can other (non-investor) stakeholders also benefit from financial materiality in ESG information? How?
- How does financial materiality impact the independent assurance of ESG disclosure?
- Which outcomes, both desirable and problematic, can financial materiality in ESG reporting produce?
- Is there an interplay between firm’s corporate governance structure and the adoption of financial materiality in ESG reporting?
- Which national or regional contexts enable (or constrain) the adoption and usefulness of financial materiality?
Prof. Eduardo Schiehll
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- financial materiality
- ESG reporting
- sustainability
- ESG performance
- investors
- stakeholders
