01. The Evolution of Sustainability Reporting

Overview. Sustainability reporting has evolved from narrow environmental disclosures into today’s structured ESG and climate reporting. This chapter traces the arc from the 1970s to the present, showing how investor needs and regulation turned voluntary narratives into standardized, decision‑useful information.

1) Beginnings (1970s–1980s): From Environment to the Boardroom

• 1972 UN Conference, Stockholm: The first major global forum on environmental issues spurred early company reports on pollution, resource use, and compliance posture. Public concern and emerging policy created demand for transparency.
• Nature of early reports: Primarily qualitative, environment‑only, and often appended to annual reports.

2) Scope Widens (late 1980s–1990s): Toward Sustainability

• 1987 Brundtland Report: Codified “sustainable development”—meeting present needs without compromising future generations—laying the conceptual base for the triple‑bottom‑line.
• Companies began linking environmental, social, and governance topics; stakeholders asked how strategy, workforce, communities, and supply chains were affected.

3) Formalization & Standardization (late 1990s–2000s)

• 1997 GRI: The first widely adopted global framework enabling comparable, credible sustainability reports across economic, environmental, and social topics.
• European policy signals pushed ESG into management systems, risk oversight, and performance metrics—beyond marketing narratives.

4) Regulation Takes Hold (2010s → today)

• NFRD (EU, 2014): Mandatory non‑financial disclosure for large public‑interest entities, establishing a legal baseline.
• CSRD (EU): Broadened scope, depth, assurance, and digital tagging via the ESRS standards, embedding sustainability into corporate governance and financial reporting cycles.

5) Present & Future: Consolidation and Investor Relevance

• ISSB global baseline: Convergence around investor‑focused standards aims to reduce fragmentation and improve comparability across markets.
• Sustainability information is increasingly assured, digitally tagged, and integrated with financial reporting, aligning data with strategy, risk, and capital allocation.

Timeline (selected)

• 1972 — UN Conference in Stockholm (environment enters mainstream corporate discourse).
• 1987 — Brundtland Report (sustainable development concept gains prominence).
• 1997 — GRI founded (first global sustainability reporting framework).
• 2014 — NFRD enacted in the EU (mandatory non‑financial reporting for large PI entities).
• 2021→ — CSRD & ESRS (scope/assurance/digitalization; standardized EU regime, investor‑usable data).

Sources: chapter outline and narrative from the project manuscript (evolution → standardization → EU regulations → present/future).