Empirical Insights Regarding Romanian Companies' Preparedness for CSRD

Sustainability reporting is the subject of substantial improvements with the adoption at the European level of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive 2022/2464/EU. Companies must prepare well in advance, under the pressure of a tight timeline, to implement this directive. In this context, the paper aims to achieve two research objectives. The first objective is to investigate the preparedness level of Romanian companies for sustainability reporting in the ex-ante phase of CSRD implementation (2020-2023), including the associated organisational challenges. The second objective is to identify the drivers that influence sustainability reporting among Romanian companies. The sample consists of 37 Romanian companies. The sustainability reporting data were collected manually, and the financial data were taken from the Orbis platform for 2020-2023. The applied research methods are content analysis, which formed the basis for the development of an original composite score, and panel regression analysis. The research results revealed that over 60% of the companies analysed managed to report, to a significant extent, the requirements introduced by the CSRD, but certain aspects, such as limited external assurance of reports and double materiality assessment, remain challenging. Furthermore, they highlighted that in addition to the non-financial reporting drivers (regulations, profitability, and company size), a key factor in sustainability reporting is the involvement of a team in the report preparation, thereby enhancing the original value of the research. The paper makes several contributions in the field for researchers, managers, and regulators, providing relevant support for possible future support legislative improvements