Sustainability reporting regulation: hypes, myths and reflections

The corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) and other mandatory sustainability disclosure requirements are reshaping sustainability reporting practices to enhance corporate transparency. However, like any other change or innovation, they create shared expectations before their practical effects are evident. This paper examines these expectations by unveiling the potential hypes and myths that the new sustainability reporting regulation may induce and reflecting on their implications for research and practice. This study employs the duality between hypes and myths to reflect on some expectations surrounding mandatory sustainability reporting requirements. It builds arguments at a normative level, drawing from academic literature and practical examples. The CSRD regulations generated some shared expectations that turned into four main hypes and potential myths that can likely spread alongside them. This paper unveils and addresses them by discussing the costs of implementing sustainability reporting, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the effect of green hushing on information completeness, the shift from corporate social responsibility to legal accountability and the implications of mandatory assurance in sustainability reporting. This study offers a unique perspective on corporate sustainability, shedding light on the potential misinterpretations associated with CSRD implementation and their influence on practices within both large companies and SMEs. It contributes to research and practice by exploring some open points that are reshaping the understanding of sustainability reporting. It contributes to the debate on mandatory sustainability reporting and corporate social responsibility and their impacts on corporate transparency and behaviour.