Assessment of Non-financial Reports in the Context of Circular Economy: The Case of Czech Large Companies

Abstract

The attention to environmental protection, sustainability, CSR, circular economy, and other related concepts became increasingly important to economies and their businesses nowadays, especially at the EU level. The upcoming Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD, Directive 2022/2464) which requires many businesses to report on sustainability, is a good example. In the Czech Republic, many large companies are already publishing their non-financial reports voluntarily or obligatorily. The presented research focuses on the Circular Economy (CE) concept and aims to asses, whether CE-related topics can be found in these types of reports. Thus, 50 large companies were selected and the level of their CE-related information in non-financial reports was assessed. Additionally, the overall assessment of the existence of these reports was made. Each company was given the evaluation score according to the amount of CE-related information published in its non-financial report or on the website. The results show that reports can bring necessary CE-related information, especially Sustainability reports or Corporate Social Responsibility reports. However, the quality of the non-financial reports depends on the fact whether organizations obligatorily publish them due to Directive 2014/95/EU or expect the obligation due to Directive (EU) 2022/2464. Those organizations that do not have to follow these directives do not publish almost any CE-related information.