Sustainability Reporting in Romania Under the CSRD and ESRS: An Exploratory Multiple Case Study of Listed Companies

Abstract

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) was adopted in order to improve the quality of this type of reporting in the European Union. However, its scope and requirements were quickly softened in order to reduce the reporting burden on companies. This paper is an exploratory multiple case study of twelve sustainability statements published for the financial years 2024 and 2025 by six top Romanian companies in terms of capitalization. It aims to analyze how companies operationalize the structured disclosure requirements of the CSRD and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) in practice. A 70-item coverage index is combined with an in-depth reading of each statement. Findings indicate that the aggregate number of disclosure requirements is approximately the same in both years, and the datapoints that can be sourced inside the reporting boundary are better covered than those depending on value chain actors. Companies disclose heterogeneous reports, some of them including more substantive disclosures, while still failing to establish concrete, quantitative sustainability targets. In most cases, the story told by the sustainability statements is made up of isolated pieces instead of painting a complete picture. The qualitative reading shows that a covered datapoint is frequently a statement of intention, a deferral or a declaration of non-materiality rather than a substantive disclosure. To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to analyze both CSRD and ESRS reporting cycles in a Central and Eastern European setting.