Do Firms Disclose Financially Material ESG Risks? Evidence From Japanese Food and Beverage Firms Using a Text Match Pretrained Transformer

ABSTRACT This study develops a financial materiality‐oriented measure of ESG disclosure and examines how sustainability disclosures respond to evolving regulatory frameworks. Focusing on listed food and beverage firms in Japan from 2020 to 2024, we apply the Text Match Pretrained Transformer (TMPT) to assess the semantic relevance between disclosures in Japanese Annual Securities Reports (yuka shoken hokokusho) and industry‐specific material topics defined by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). We find that ESG disclosure increases markedly after 2022, coinciding with the implementation of sustainability‐related disclosure initiatives. In particular, strengthened TCFD‐aligned climate disclosure expectations for prime market firms coincide with improvements in GHG emissions disclosure. The introduction of mandatory human capital disclosure in statutory filings contributes to improvements in social disclosure, while heightened global supply chain risks are associated with increased disclosure related to supply chain management. This study contributes to the literature on corporate sustainability, ESG disclosure, and financial materiality, and offers insights for investors, firms, and standard setters seeking to evaluate and design effective sustainability reporting regimes.