Non-financial Disclosure and Sustainability Reporting: A Systematic Literature Review

The evolution and corporate awareness of non-financial disclosure and sustainability reporting have notably increased in recent years, as emphasized in the academic literature. In order to examine how the academic literature has dealt with non-financial disclosure and sustainability reporting, a systematic literature review has been carried out by searching relevant publications in the Scopus database and following a consecutive-steps approach of analysis. The results of the literature review subsequently conducted are divided into paragraphs, indicating the issues most considered. These concern: the designation and media of sustainability disclosure; the need to disclose both significant and reliable information about the materiality assessment process carried out upstream by the organization; the function and motivation of sustainability reporting, recalling the different theoretical approaches that support them; the relationship between disclosure and corporate performance; the commitment of providing both quantitative and qualitative information through sustainability reports, highlighting also the increasing relevance of assurance.