Companies’ roads to a net-zero greenhouse gas footprint and related disclosure quality in their corporate reports

This article focusses on the quality of greenhouse gas emission related disclosures of heavy greenhouse gas emitting companies. Despite the fact that in many EU-countries the transposition of the CSRD in national law was still not completed, almost all companies in our sample applied the CSRD accompanied by a review opinion providing limited assurance. While a strong majority disclose (intermediate) goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we see a variation in the year selected as reference for measuring the reduction. Our findings suggest that the comparability of corporate reports is currently impaired by variations in entities’ reporting scope, classification policies, measurement methods and disclosure practices. All assurance reports on sustainability reports were unqualified in our sample. The attention of the auditor for the impact of carbon emissions and related commitments is significant.