Sustainability Reporting and Fair Presentation

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Introduction

The rapid evolution of sustainability reporting has significantly transformed corporate disclosure practices, moving from a largely voluntary communication tool into an increasingly institutionalised reporting practice (Contrafatto, 2014; Lai & Stacchezzini, 2021; Abela, 2022). The introduction of comprehensive reporting frameworks and standards—including the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards, and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)—reflects increasing demands from investors, regulators, civil society, and other stakeholders for sustainability information that is transparent, decision-useful, comparable, and capable of supporting corporate accountability (Adams, 2015; Bebbington & Unerman, 2018; Giner & Luque-Vílchez, 2022).

Alongside this evolution, a rich body of literature has critically examined the extent to which sustainability disclosures faithfully represent organizations’ environmental and social performance or, conversely, serve as instruments of organisational legitimacy, impression management, and symbolic communication (Gray, 2006; Boiral, 2013; Cho et al., 2015). These studies have highlighted persistent concerns regarding greenwashing, selective disclosure, narrative bias, optimistic tone, incompleteness, and the decoupling between reported sustainability commitments and organisational practices (Melloni et al., 2015; Michelon et al., 2015; Diouf & Boiral, 2017).

Such concerns have stimulated extensive research on sustainability reporting quality, materiality, stakeholder engagement, accountability, assurance, and credibility (Adams, 2004; Edgley, 2014; Boiral & Heras-Saizarbitoria, 2020). Nevertheless, one fundamental principle remains surprisingly underexplored: fair presentation. In financial reporting, fair presentation constitutes a cornerstone of financial reporting quality, requiring financial statements to provide a faithful, neutral, complete and unbiased representation of an entity’s financial position and performance (Evans, 2003; Alexander & Jermakowicz, 2006; Barker, 2015; Barker and Schulte, 2017). By contrast, sustainability reporting standards have increasingly incorporated concepts such as faithful representation, neutrality, completeness, connectivity and materiality, yet they rarely place fair presentation explicitly at the centre of the reporting model.

The multidimensional nature of sustainability information, the increasing reliance on estimates, scenario analyses, forward-looking information, and qualitative narratives, together with the coexistence of multiple reporting frameworks, raise important questions regarding what fair presentation should mean in sustainability reporting. More fundamentally, the fragmentation of existing debates—ranging from reporting quality and credibility to accountability, assurance, materiality, and greenwashing—suggests the need for an overarching conceptual principle capable of integrating these different streams of research. Fair presentation may provide such an integrative lens by extending beyond technical compliance with reporting standards towards a broader assessment of whether sustainability disclosures genuinely provide a balanced, complete, neutral, and decision-useful representation of an organisation’s sustainability impacts, risks, opportunities, and performance.

This Special Issue seeks to stimulate scholarly debate on whether fair presentation represents the missing conceptual link capable of strengthening the quality, credibility, transparency, accountability, and usefulness of sustainability reporting. We particularly welcome theoretical, empirical, interdisciplinary, and critical contributions examining the conceptual foundations of fair presentation, its relationship with existing reporting principles, its implications for standard-setting and assurance, and its potential role in advancing the next generation of sustainability reporting research and practice.

List of Topic Areas

• The concept of fair presentation in sustainability reporting
• Fair presentation versus faithful representation: conceptual similarities and differences
• Fair presentation under ESRS, ISSB, GRI and other sustainability reporting frameworks
• The relationship between fair presentation and double materiality
• Fair presentation and decision usefulness of sustainability information
• Fair presentation and sustainability assurance
• The role of governance mechanisms in promoting fair presentation
• Greenwashing, impression management, and fair presentation
• Narrative reporting and balanced sustainability disclosures
• Internal control systems supporting fair presentation
• Fair presentation and connectivity between financial and sustainability reporting
• The impact of digital reporting, artificial intelligence, and data analytics on fair presentation
• Industry-specific challenges in achieving fair presentation
• Comparative analyses across countries and regulatory environments
• Assurance providers' role in evaluating fair presentation
• Fair presentation of climate-related risks, biodiversity impacts, human rights, and social issues
• Stakeholder perceptions of fair presentation
• Fair presentation and corporate accountability
• Future directions for sustainability reporting regulation.

Guest Editors 

Richard Barker, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, richard.barker@sbs.ox.ac.uk 

Alessandro Lai, Department of Management, University of Verona, Italy, alessandro.lai@univr.it 

Riccardo Stacchezzini, Department of Management, University of Verona, Italy riccardo.stacchezzini@univr.it

Submissions Information

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Author Guidelines

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”. Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 1st September 2027

Closing date for manuscripts submission: 30th November 2027