Sustainability reporting in the EU-27: The impact of national ESG ecosystems and organizational implications

Avram, Alexandru et al. Article Sustainability reporting in the EU-27: The impact of national ESG ecosystems and organizational implications Amfiteatru Economic Provided in Cooperation with: The Bucharest University of Economic Studies Suggested Citation: Avram, Alexandru et al. (2025) : Sustainability reporting in the EU-27: The impact of national ESG ecosystems and organizational implications, Amfiteatru Economic, ISSN 2247-9104, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Vol. 27, Iss. 70, pp. 957-972, https://doi.org/10.24818/EA/2025/70/957 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/328030 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Sustainability Reporting: Catalyst for Organisational and Professional Change AE Vol. 27 • No. 70 • August 2025 957 SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING IN THE EU-27: THE IMPACT OF NATIONAL ESG ECOSYSTEMS AND ORGANIZATIONAL IMPLICATIONS Alexandru Avram1, Georgiana Maria Lungu2, Costin Daniel Avram3, Luminița Popescu4, Daniel Tobă5 and Iulia-Cristina Ciurea6 * 1) Timișoara West University, Timișoara, Romania 2)3)4)5) University of Craiova, Craiova, Romania 6) Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania Please cite this article as: Avram, A., Lungu, G.M., Avram, C.D., Popescu, L., Tobă, D. and Ciurea, I.C., 2025. Sustainability Reporting in the EU-27: The Impact of National ESG Ecosystems and Organizational Implications. Amfiteatru Economic, 27(70), pp. 957-972. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24818/EA/2025/70/957 Article History Received: 29 March 2025 Revised: 6 May 2025 Accepted: 8 June 2025 Abstract Sustainability reporting is a vital element that enables stakeholders to discern how companies comply with social, environmental, and governance regulations while assessing sustainable development. This study examines the national context that influences corporate sustainability reporting, emphasising the interplay between macrolevel ESG economic conditions and firm-level disclosures mandated by frameworks such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). While previous studies focused on organisational and concept-level analysis, the originality of this study lies in the direct evaluation of national ESG-economic ecosystems on the preparedness of EU member states for sustainability reporting under the new directive. A macroeconomic analysis of the EU-27 member states was performed using key ESG and economic indicators, with the principal component analysis generating a composite index of national performance. Additionally, the clustering of K-means revealed different regional profiles that reflect differences in ESG economic metrics. These findings have important implications, as countries with stronger macro indicators encourage environments that facilitate the adoption of advanced reporting methods, while countries facing economic and institutional challenges may require targeted interventions to improve transparency and compliance. This approach provides valuable information for policymakers and investors, emphasising the systemic links between national conditions and effective sustainability reporting at the organisational level. Keywords: sustainability reporting, ESG, principal component analysis, K-means clustering, decision-making process. JEL Classification: D83, M14, M48, Q58 * Corresponding author, Iulia-Cristina Ciurea – e-mail: [email protected] This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2025 The Author(s). AE Sustainability Reporting in the EU-27: The Impact of National ESG Ecosystems and Organizational Implications 958 Amfiteatru Economic Introduction Sustainability is a major trend in modern business. It motivates firms to use structured plans to look at their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals (Nițu, 2024). As more businesses adopt this view, more scholars focus on the principles of green and fair development, especially since not everyone benefits from the growth of the economy (Ibourk and Raoui, 2023). And the rules of sustainability are not just for the business field. According to Dima and Ghinea (2016), they also belong in schools by looking at leadership trends and making the school more competitive. All of this shows how widely sustainability plans are used. Reports have long since shown a rather unstructured view of firm ESG performance. A very rapid change has recently taken that practice to what is now known as sustainability reporting, the structured communication of the company's ESG performance and commitment regarding sustainable development to the broader society. These would include detailed policies on the environment, emissions and wastes, human resources, and general social policies, such as diversity, equity, and inclusion. In Romania, according to OMFP 85/2024, the report indicates that the sustainability aspect is strategically vital for market competitiveness and development and, therefore, can be used to restate the development depicted by the firm. Normally, these are prepared in response to some internationally recognised standard, such as that of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Sustainability reports were founded in response to greater transparency and awareness of stakeholders as a foundation for corporate social responsibility activities to create long-term value. Reporting under CSR would thus be directed at the former of the two, responsible for creating new value systems in enterprises, since reporting is the foundation of all the CSR activities set in enterprises introduced by these new value systems, as stated in the Paris Agreement of December 12, 2015. Recent legislative changes have led to a major transformation of the way companies report their sustainability initiatives. The new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which entered into force in January 2023, extends and details the current requirements based on the previous non-financial reporting. Through CSRD, reporting becomes broader and more standardised, emphasising not only ESG performance and risk exposure, but also sustainability integration into the business strategy. At the same time, the directive introduces the “double materiality” principle, asking companies to describe both the way sustainability aspects affect their activity and the impact their operations have on the environment and society at large. With the CSRD entry information force, the new global standards IFRS S1 (General Requirements for Sustainability Reporting) and IFRS S2 (Climate Disclosures) were also launched. These frameworks are designed to guide companies in presenting material sustainability risks and opportunities from the perspective of investors and other stakeholders. In Romania, these regulations are transposed through OMFP 85/2024, which clearly establishes the guidelines for the integration of ESG data into the basic corporate reporting. Despite this progress, many organisations are facing difficulties, either due to the complexities of the new standards, the lack of adequate internal competencies, or the lack of access to ESG data in a standardised format. Furthermore, variations in reporting practices and the motivations behind them from one jurisdiction to another hinder the genuine comparability of information. To overcome these obstacles, it is essential that companies, regulators, and all interested parties collaborate to apply uniform requirements at the EU level. Sustainability Reporting: Catalyst for Organisational and Professional Change AE Vol. 27 • No. 70 • August 2025 959 Based on these realities and challenges, the main objective of this study is to evaluate how the national ESG-economic contexts of the EU-27 member states are prepared to effectively adopt and implement the CSRD requirements. To this end, we will construct a composite index of national preparedness for sustainability reporting using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and we will identify regional ESG-economic performance patterns through K-means clustering, so as to provide practical recommendations to policymakers for the coherent and efficient implementation of the new directive. 1. Review of the specialised literature Sustainability reporting has gained prominence within the converging forces of global institutions and academic research. The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) brings together regulators, investors, companies, standard-setting bodies, accounting professionals, and NGOs in a global coalition aimed at developing the integrated report, which is a concise corporate document oriented toward users' needs (IIRC, 2013). Through this initiative, all key players, such as standard-setters, investors, and other stakeholders, collaborate to harmonise financial and nonfinancial information with sustainability objectives, thus ensuring clear communication of long-term value. Integrated sustainability in reporting has already been shown to improve transparency, accountability, and stakeholder trust, which is why integrated reports are increasingly preferred. Research indicates that these reports, by offering a comprehensive view of corporate performance, significantly improve transparency and accountability (Friedman and Miles, 2002; Tihanyi, Graffin and George, 2014; Ioannou and Serafeim, 2015), optimise long-term strategic and operational decision making of companies (Ioannou and Serafeim, 2015; Waddock, Bodwell and Leigh, 2017), and strengthen organisational reputation (Epstein and Roy, 2004). Additionally, they facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration (Hahn and Kühnen, 2013), increase investor engagement (Ionescu et al., 2019), help manage complexity (Dănescu and Matei, 2020), and support talent attraction and retention (Zbuchea et al., 2019), thus conferring strategic value on corporate governance. As firms combine financial reporting with ESG disclosures (Clayton, Rogerson and Rampedi, 2015; Camilleri, 2018), the alignment of strategy, financial performance, and ESG outcomes has driven the adoption of integrated reporting (Stubbs and Higgins, 2018). Scholars such as Thejo (2017), Herzig and Schaltegger (2011) and Lozano (2015) emphasise that sustainability reporting not only promotes transparency, but also enhances public image credibility. To harmonise various standards and meet investor needs, bodies such as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), established in 2021, have emerged. The adoption in 2022 of the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the development of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) mark a transition toward a unified, comprehensive framework designed to increase the transparency and comparability of sustainability reporting across the entire EU. Recent academic literature stresses substantial disparities in sustainability and reporting practices in European countries. Quantitative analyses of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) confirm that Europe advances heterogeneously: Nordic countries (such as Sweden) stand out positively, while others lag far behind (Anselmi et al., 2023). Studies focused on ESG indicators show similar results: Nordic countries achieve top national ESG scores, as opposed to economies in southern and eastern Europe, which consistently rank at the bottom AE Sustainability Reporting in the EU-27: The Impact of National ESG Ecosystems and Organizational Implications 960 Amfiteatru Economic (Pineau et al., 2022; Copcă et al., 2024; Cojocaru et al., 2025). In fact, some western and northern European states have advanced institutional ecosystems for ESG reporting, while others are only in the early stages of developing a sustainable reporting framework (Singhania and Saini, 2022). The EU policy approach implicitly acknowledges these disparities: European authorities emphasise the combination of stringent rules with flexibility and the participation of local stakeholders. In the context of the new reporting requirements, a multi-actor model that includes dialogue with national authorities and reporting entities is deemed essential to ensure effective implementation of sustainability standards (Anselmi et al., 2023). Most research to date has focused either at the micro level (companies and their reporting practices), on macro indicators of overall sustainability (for example, composite sustainable development indices), or on conceptual notions. Unlike these approaches, the present study investigates the relationship between national ESG economic ecosystems and the readiness of the EU-27 states to implement the CSRD, a perspective that has been relatively unaddressed in the current literature. Our contribution lies in the integration of environmental, social, governance, and economic development factors into a national ESG economic composite index, constructed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). We then apply clustering algorithms (K-means) to group the EU-27 states into homogeneous regional profiles based on their ESG economic characteristics. This data-driven methodological approach allows the identification of systemic patterns of institutional capacity and national preparedness. 2. Research Methodology A macroeconomic analysis was conducted in the 27 member states of the EU (EU-27) with a set of environmental indicators (environmental performance index, CO2 emissions per capita, overall share of energy from renewable sources, municipal waste recycling rate, circular material use rate), social indicators (human development index, digital society and economy index, people at risk of poverty or social exclusion, employment rate, gender employment gap, years of healthy life at birth), governance indicators (corruption perception index, individuals who used a website or an app of a public authority in the last 12 months, rule of law score, political stability, government effectiveness score), and economic indicators (competitive sustainability index, GDP per capita in PPS, share of government budget allocations for research and development in total general government expenditure, government consolidated gross debt, environmental tax revenues). These data were drawn from public databases such as Eurostat, the European Commission, the World Bank, Yale University, Cambridge University, Our World in Data, and the United Nations. For each indicator, the most recently published value was used (predominantly from 2023, with a small percentage from 2022 and 2024). This approach maximises data currency, and a temporal deviation of up to one year does not significantly affect the comparability between states. The indicators were used to perform the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which produced a single-dimensional index that captured the economic performance of each country on the ESG. K-means clustering was then applied to reveal groups of countries with similar profiles, thereby highlighting regional patterns and providing a broader comparative framework for understanding ESG dynamics in the EU. Importantly, the values resulting from both PCA and cluster analysis do not only represent composite ESG and economic performance scores; they also reflect each country's ability to nurture an institutional and Sustainability Reporting: Catalyst for Organisational and Professional Change AE Vol. 27 • No. 70 • August 2025 961 regulatory environment conducive to sustainability reporting at the organisational level. A complete institutional framework, high standards of governance, and major investments in technology and digitisation are important factors that influence the ease with which companies can adopt and implement sustainability reporting standards, such as IFRS S1, IFRS S2 and the CSRD. In this context, macro-level indicators serve as a proxy for the readiness of individual organisations within each country to meet the detailed disclosure and transparency requirements imposed by the new European regulations. For example, higher scores in governance and digital infrastructure can reduce the cost and complexity of implementing these standards, whereas countries with weaker institutional frameworks may require additional capacity building to align with IFRS best practices. This approach helps bridge the gap between national economic conditions on ESG and corporate-level reporting practices, offering valuable insights for policy makers and stakeholders who want to improve the overall quality and comparability of sustainability reports across the EU. First, all variables were rescaled so that higher numerical values consistently represented more favourable outcomes. The principal component analysis was then conducted on the set of variables. For each EU-27 country, the first three main components were extracted and weighted according to their respective shares of explained variance, which cumulatively amounts to approximately 0.68, as seen in Table no. 1. Table no. 1. Principal Component Variance and Normalised Weights Principal Component Raw Variance Explained Normalised Weight PC1 0.46 0.68 PC2 0.12 0.17 PC3 0.10 0.14 Total 0.68 1.00 𝑤𝑘=𝜆𝑘 𝜆1+ 𝜆2+ 𝜆3 for 𝑘 = 1, 2, 3 (1) where: 𝜆𝑘 = eigenvalue corresponding to the 𝑘th principal component 𝑤𝑘 = weight assigned to the 𝑘th principal component These weighted components were then summed to construct a single composite index. This index, with higher values indicating better overall performance, facilitates the classification of countries and allows further stratification into quantiles, deciles, or percentiles. 𝐼𝑖= 𝑤1𝑃𝐶𝑖1 + 𝑤2𝑃𝐶𝑖2 + 𝑤3𝑃𝐶𝑖3 (2) where: 𝑃𝐶𝑖𝑘 = score for country 𝑖 on the 𝑘th principal component 𝐼𝑖 = composite index for country 𝑖 AE Sustainability Reporting in the EU-27: The Impact of National ESG Ecosystems and Organizational Implications 962 Amfiteatru Economic Figure no. 1. Between-Cluster and Within-Cluster Sum of Squares as a Function of k For the second analysis, k-means clustering was applied by varying the number of clusters N from two to ten, as seen in Table no. 2. Table no. 2. K-Means Clustering Results by Number of Clusters No. of clusters BSS WSS Proportion BSS/(BSS+WSS) 2 177.05 368.95 0.32 3 242.49 303.52 0.44 4 279.80 266.20 0.51 5 314.60 231.40 0.58 6 342.19 203.81 0.63 7 367.95 178.05 0.67 8 389.84 156.16 0.71 9 409.75 136.25 0.75 10 425.91 120.09 0.78 For each N, the between-cluster sum of squares (BSS), within-cluster sum of squares (WSS), and the proportion of explained variance were calculated. We notice that as N increases, BSS increases due to the more refined partition of the data, whereas WSS declines because the clusters become increasingly compact (Figure no. 1). The proportion of explained variance grows from approximately 32% in two clusters to around 78% in ten clusters, meaning that additional clusters account for progressively more of the total variation. However, given the fact that our analysis is limited to the EU-27 countries, for interpretability, we shall choose at most six clusters, to avoid the overfitting that would result from too many clusters and the fragmentation of the countries. 3. Results and debates The selection of the variables included was guided by the objective of capturing a comprehensive and multidimensional view of the structural capacity of each country to support the reporting of ESG. Environmental indicators (e.g., CO₂ emissions, renewable energy share, recycling rate) reflect sustainability performance, while socioeconomic and 177.05 242.49 279.80 314.60 342.19 367.95 389.84 409.75 425.91 368.95 303.52 266.20 231.40 203.81 178.05 156.16 136.25 120.09 0.00 50.00 100.00 150.00 200.00 250.00 300.00 350.00 400.00 450.00 2345678910 BSS WSS Sustainability Reporting: Catalyst for Organisational and Professional Change AE Vol. 27 • No. 70 • August 2025 963 institutional indicators (e.g., HDI, government effectiveness, poverty risk, rule of law) provide information on governance quality and social inclusion. The inclusion of digitalisation metrics, such as the DESI index and e-government usage, directly responds to the increasing reliance on digital infrastructure in sustainability reporting. Economic indicators, such as GDP per capita and environmental tax revenues, were chosen to account for financial capacity and commitment to green transitions. Together, these variables align with international frameworks for sustainable development and integrated reporting (GRI, CSRD, IFRS S1/S2) and allow for a comparative spatial analysis of ESG readiness in EU member states. Figure no. 4. Percentile distribution of the principal component score Figure 4 graphically summarises the scores of the main components derived from the PCA analysis, which express the distribution of the ESG economic performances of the EU countries in percentiles. This representation allows for the identification of significant differences between nations and the link between the scores received and the level of willingness to implement consistent sustainable reporting policies. Although sustainability reporting occurs at the organisational level, it is deeply influenced by national policies, digital infrastructure, and governance quality. These macrolevel factors not only shape the overall business climate, but also determine the capacity of companies to adopt and effectively implement advanced sustainability reporting frameworks. To capture the status and performance of a country in terms of ESG and economic indicators and, by extension, its readiness for sustainability reporting, we created a single index using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which allows us to rank the EU-27 countries on a unidimensional scale. A higher index value indicates better ESG and economic performance, which in turn suggests a stronger institutional and regulatory environment that supports detailed sustainability disclosures required by standards such as CSRD. Figure 4 shows the percentile distribution of the principal component scores, ranging from -4.360 to +3.583. Because PCA involves standardising variables and then projecting them onto orthogonal axes of maximal variance, the resulting scores can span both negative and positive values. The countries with the highest scores (+3.002 to +3.583) can be found in Northern Europe AE Sustainability Reporting in the EU-27: The Impact of National ESG Ecosystems and Organizational Implications 964 Amfiteatru Economic (Denmark, Sweden, and Finland). These countries exhibit strong governance, advanced digital infrastructure, and strong environmental policies. This combination creates a favourable environment for companies to implement effective sustainability reporting practices. In the next highest percentile, which boasts the most countries, with scores ranging from -0.006 to +3.002, we have Western European (Ireland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria), 2/3 of the Baltics (Estonia, Lithuania) and certain Central European (the Czech Republic, Slovenia) countries. These countries also have a relatively conducive environment for reliable ESG disclosures. Conversely, the Southern European countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Cyprus) together with the rest of Central Europe ones (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary), Croatia (Southeast), and Latvia (Baltics) cluster towards the lower percentiles (scores between -2.976 to -0.006), whereas eastern Europe (Romania, Bulgaria) and Greece (Southeast) show the lowest possible scores (-4.360 to -2.976).). The underlying implication of these scores is that countries with higher principal component scores, found in Northern and Western Europe, are better positioned to implement effective sustainability and ESG reporting due to factors such as stronger governance, well-established regulatory frameworks, higher levels of interest, and investment in environmental actions, to name a few. Countries with lower scores, compared, often in southern and eastern Europe, face greater challenges in developing consistent and transparent reporting practices, given their weaker institutional capacity and limited economic resources, which is why a targeted capacity-building approach must be adopted to help these countries align their sustainability reporting frameworks with established best practices. Figure no. 5. K-Means Clustering of EU-27 Countries by ESG and Economic Indicators (4 Clusters) To deepen our study, we ran a K-means clustering analysis so as to capture also the similarities between the countries in the chosen dimensions, not just how they rank among each other. For n = 4 (Figure no. 5, Table no. 4), the largest cluster is the first one, boasting 15 out of the total 27 European countries. 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