Non-Financial disclosure evolution through the Directive 2014/95/UE

Abstract

The European Directive 2014/95/UE handed over to large companies indicators and procedures to report non-financial information. This kind of disclosure comes from the increasing demand by investors and stakeholders in general, to acquire information as gender equality, environmental sustainability and working conditions of the main European companies. The purpose of this dissertation is to study and analyse the quality evolution of non-financial disclosure after the implementation of the European Directive and to find possible correlation with the economic performance of the companies. Through a randomized sample of 150 companies, coming from Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Portugal, United Kingdom, Romania and Slovakia, I’m going to analyse the quality of non-financial disclosure on the 2017 sustainability and integrated report published by companies (if not published the analysis will be based on the 2017 annual report). In the first chapters there will be an academic study of the evolution of non-financial disclosure and the implementation of the EU Directive. In the final chapters of this master thesis there will be a comparison with the results reached by two Ca ’Foscari students on the analyses of 2016 reports. This dissertation will also try to find possible correlation between the economic and finance performance of companies and their degree of non-financial disclosure.