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The DAX 40 and its SDG Reporting: Symbolic or Substantive?

Heil, Elias Jacob LU and Marelli, Claudio LU (2025) BUSN79 20251
Department of Business Administration
Abstract
Purpose:
This thesis analyses and assesses how companies in Germany’s DAX 40 demonstrate their adherence to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It evaluates whether these disclosures are mainly substantive, indicating proper strategic integration, or symbolic, aimed primarily at enhancing reputation, and compares their reporting quality to previous international research.

Methodology:
This research conducts a directed mixed qualitative–quantitative content analysis of the 2023 sustainability-related, annual, and integrated reports of all 40 DAX companies. The reports were screened for SDG Understanding, Prioritisation, and Measurement through a self-developed ten-item binary coding checklist created by merging two existing... (More)
Purpose:
This thesis analyses and assesses how companies in Germany’s DAX 40 demonstrate their adherence to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It evaluates whether these disclosures are mainly substantive, indicating proper strategic integration, or symbolic, aimed primarily at enhancing reputation, and compares their reporting quality to previous international research.

Methodology:
This research conducts a directed mixed qualitative–quantitative content analysis of the 2023 sustainability-related, annual, and integrated reports of all 40 DAX companies. The reports were screened for SDG Understanding, Prioritisation, and Measurement through a self-developed ten-item binary coding checklist created by merging two existing practitioners’ frameworks.

Theoretical Perspectives:
The study employs Stakeholder, Legitimacy, and New Institutional Theory as a composite lens to assess whether the DAX 40 companies’ SDG disclo-sures are substantive or symbolic.

Empirical Foundation:
The analysis is based on the complete set of sustainability-related annual and integrated reports issued for the financial year 2023 by all 40 companies in Germany’s DAX index, retrieved from their corporate websites in February and March 2025.

Conclusion:
Most DAX 40 firms now reference the UN SDGs. Nevertheless, the vast ma-jority stops at broad narrative claims, as only a small minority translates the goals into concrete, measurable targets and KPIs for each of their most ma-terial SDGs. Consequently, the analysis suggests that the SDG reporting within the DAX 40 remains largely symbolic. Compared internationally, the firms rank in the middle of the range, strong on rhetoric but weaker on meas-urable impact. To transition from symbolism to substance, companies must link material SDGs to specific UN targets, integrating the goals into strategy and transparent performance metrics. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Heil, Elias Jacob LU and Marelli, Claudio LU
supervisor
organization
course
BUSN79 20251
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
Corporate Sustainability Reporting, SDGs, DAX 40, Content Analysis, Disclosure Quality
language
English
id
9199242
date added to LUP
2025-06-26 14:48:01
date last changed
2025-06-26 14:48:01
@misc{9199242,
  abstract     = {{Purpose:
This thesis analyses and assesses how companies in Germany’s DAX 40 demonstrate their adherence to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It evaluates whether these disclosures are mainly substantive, indicating proper strategic integration, or symbolic, aimed primarily at enhancing reputation, and compares their reporting quality to previous international research.

Methodology:
This research conducts a directed mixed qualitative–quantitative content analysis of the 2023 sustainability-related, annual, and integrated reports of all 40 DAX companies. The reports were screened for SDG Understanding, Prioritisation, and Measurement through a self-developed ten-item binary coding checklist created by merging two existing practitioners’ frameworks.

Theoretical Perspectives:
The study employs Stakeholder, Legitimacy, and New Institutional Theory as a composite lens to assess whether the DAX 40 companies’ SDG disclo-sures are substantive or symbolic.

Empirical Foundation:
The analysis is based on the complete set of sustainability-related annual and integrated reports issued for the financial year 2023 by all 40 companies in Germany’s DAX index, retrieved from their corporate websites in February and March 2025.

Conclusion:
Most DAX 40 firms now reference the UN SDGs. Nevertheless, the vast ma-jority stops at broad narrative claims, as only a small minority translates the goals into concrete, measurable targets and KPIs for each of their most ma-terial SDGs. Consequently, the analysis suggests that the SDG reporting within the DAX 40 remains largely symbolic. Compared internationally, the firms rank in the middle of the range, strong on rhetoric but weaker on meas-urable impact. To transition from symbolism to substance, companies must link material SDGs to specific UN targets, integrating the goals into strategy and transparent performance metrics.}},
  author       = {{Heil, Elias Jacob and Marelli, Claudio}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{The DAX 40 and its SDG Reporting: Symbolic or Substantive?}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}