Sustainability Information in European Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Currently, there is an emphasis on the role of knowledge in corporate sustainability reporting. Europe has just published a new Directive on Corporate Sustainability Reporting Disclosure and elaborating new European Sustainability Reporting Standards. However, no studies on this subject cover the micro (firm-level) spectrum and focus on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the backbone of the European company. This paper aims to analyze sustainability reports voluntarily disclosed by European SMEs using lexical analysis because narrative information requires more than traditional methodology. The variable company’s size is used to check if it supposes differences in the lexical features of the reports. The sample comprises all the voluntarily issued sustainability reports available on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) database for 2016–2018, written in English and pdf format by European SMEs. It is obtained that there is a positive relationship between a company’s size and the length of sustainability reports. Bigger small- and medium-sized companies repeat more words, and the most frequently used words are similar, regardless of the company’s size. Lexical analysis shows that there is some template for drafting these sustainability reports used by all companies, so their narration about sustainable development is the same. This study provides an opportunity to improve knowledge about sustainability disclosure and standards on the SMEs’ scope, which is scarce. Disclosure of sustainability reports is also becoming essential for SMEs to ensure greater comparability and transparency and to cope with the global challenge of sustainability. However, for these companies, this should be proportionate.