The financial reports of the automotive companies' are measured in a standardized manner; therefore, they are transparent and comparable to each other, but this is not valid for the sustainability reports and it is not possible to compare their sustainability performances. Standard-setting organizations are currently searching for better reporting procedures. This study aims to investigate the connection between sustainability and financial reports for the most dominant European car manufacturers. It reviews the traceability of the sustainability elements back to the financial statements, which helps transparency, comparability, and impact measurement of the disclosed items and issues. This investigation allowed us to additionally review whether these companies are targeting to disclose the most harmful pollution impacts, or only focus to disclose the required obligatory items. Given the financial and sustainability reports magnitude manual testing would not provide complete and proper coverage, therefore we utilized an automated and AI-assisted content analysis with natural language processing. In this new review method, the sustainable elements of the textual reports were automatically retrieved following the 5-stage model of Landrum & Ohsowski (2018). The study highlights the lack of true sustainability information content of reports and the potential discrepancies and connections between the financial and the sustainability reports. Findings concluded that sustainability disclosures at the reviewed companies from several aspects could be improved and quantified, traced back to the financial disclosures, and to be comparable to each other if they apply a similar review method.
Graphic abstract
Soyabean flours, as additives and protein enrichment materials to foods having low protein content, have a major role in the food industry to increase the nutritional value of processed products. In the technology of soyabean flour production there is a great need for rapid information about the oil–protein complex of raw soyabean varieties. The main goal of our present investigation is to develop classification models, which are adequate to set the process parameters of soyabean flour production. We gathered raw soyabeans from the Agricultural Producing and Trading Inc. of Boly, Hungary. Fifteen different types, spanning three years, were studied by NIR using a NIRSystems 6250 monochromator. For pretreatment of the raw spectra smoothing and 2OFD (Second Order of Finite Difference) algorithms were used. PCA was performed and loading spectra were analysed to gain information on the main regions of interest. Based on the selected wavelength regions SIMCA classification was carried out. The results show that between years certain types of raw soyabeans are stable in oil–protein composition. In addition, the ratio of the constituents in the selected types is suitable for the above mentioned technology.
This study examines the expansion of a German free-float car-sharing company in Hungary from financial and sustainability perspectives. BMW and Daimler recently created the joint ventures ShareNow, ChargeNow, ReachNow, FreeNow, and ParkNow, which are having a significant global impact, as their services are now available in 14 different countries. We also expect further market development, since ShareNow started to operate in Hungary in May 2019. The whole EU market is just one step away from being covered by the same professional service, and the future might bring a real globally available free-float car-sharing service provider. Our review used a combination of two methodologies: financial statement-based business analysis and sustainability analysis. On the basis of this study, we concluded that these companies are primarily operated for profit and not on a sustainable operation basis. Additionally, it was also found that the current statistical data collection method does not measure precisely these activities. Financial reporting and sustainability reporting are connected, but they cover different areas. As a subject of further research, we suggest examining whether it is possible to establish a clear connection between these methodologies in the foreseeable future.
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