Comprehensive sustainability reporting : a long road to go for German TecDax 30 companies

This study analyses the current practice in sustainability reporting among the German TecDAX companies for 2009 and 2010. A scoring system has been developed with 23 indicators based on the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative to evaluate scope and quality of the sustainability reports. This study reveals that most of the companies do not publish meaningful, comparable and transparent reports. Almost half of the TecDAX companies do not publish any information about their impact on society, environment and economy. The majority of the published reports does not enable the recipients of the report to develop a comprehensive picture of the socio-ecological impact and hence are not adequate. Some reports even raise the suspicion of "green washing". In this case, sustainability reporting fails to have the desired positive effect for the company and can lead to a negative image.