An assessment of CSR disclosure in EU countries

Abstract

Due to the accelerating globalization, nowadays companies face a growing number of requirements of community, government, trade unions, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders’. While fulfilling these requirements companies have formed their social responsibility policies, practices and reports. The paper focuses on the assessment of CSR disclosure in EU countries. According to the EU directive (Directive of the European Parliament, 2014) all major companies in EU should disclose in their management report relevant and useful information on their policies, main risks and outcomes relating to at least environmental matters, social and employee aspects, respect for human rights, anticorruption and bribery issues, diversity in their board of directors. To analyse the CSR disclosure in EU countries, the content analyses method was used during 2014-2016 period. The CSR reports were taken from Global compact database. As the study showed there is significant flexibility for companies to disclose relevant information (including reporting in a separate report), as well as they may rely on international, European or national guidelines (UN Global Compact, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, ISO 26000, EMAS, GRI). Although many companies disclosed their CSR activities, the level of disclosures are still low and differs within EU Countries. Most of the companies uses different CSR disclosure methodologies and differently disclose the aspects of CSR.