Does disclosure in sustainability reports indicate actual sustainability performance?

This study investigates whether sustainability reports indicate corporate sustainability performance-in other words, the extent to which such disclosure is informative. To extract relevant information from sustainability reports, 51 sustainability indicators of practices were compiled from the literature and reporting guidelines on sustainability. These indicators were then scored for 331 companies based on the content of their sustainability reports. A factor analysis carried out on these indicators yielded five constructs: three for environmental sustainability and two for social sustainability. Bloomberg's environmental and social governance (ESG) ratings and Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DSJI), which use private and public information from companies, served as proxies for actual sustainability performance. Upon testing, the constructs developed from the sustainability reports were found to explain the DJSI and ESG measures of sustainability significantly. Therefore, sustainability reports appear to indicate actual sustainability performance. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.