Dressing Up the Damage: Sustainability Reporting in the Apparel Retail Industry
(2025) IBUH19 20251Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Sustainability reporting remains a well-established field of research, with many important contributions. Additionally, the public has a growing desire for firms to adopt responsible ESG practices, thus requiring more transparency and accountability. Without the acceptance from the public, the business might face negative consequences. The understanding of how sustainability reporting is disclosed under mandatory legal compliance remains, to some extent, ambiguous due to its novelty. With the new implementation of the CSRD starting this year for firms within the EU, firms are forced to disclose more sustainability-related information than previously, thus prior research is limited. The objective of this study was to examine seven major... (More)
- Sustainability reporting remains a well-established field of research, with many important contributions. Additionally, the public has a growing desire for firms to adopt responsible ESG practices, thus requiring more transparency and accountability. Without the acceptance from the public, the business might face negative consequences. The understanding of how sustainability reporting is disclosed under mandatory legal compliance remains, to some extent, ambiguous due to its novelty. With the new implementation of the CSRD starting this year for firms within the EU, firms are forced to disclose more sustainability-related information than previously, thus prior research is limited. The objective of this study was to examine seven major apparel retail firms within the EU and investigate how they legitimize themselves through the mandatory framework of ESRS within the CSRD. The apparel retail industry was chosen due to its scrutinized nature. The data collected were extracted from the chosen firms’ 2024 annual reports, and the method applied was a qualitative content analysis. The data was further categorized into a pre-existing framework of legitimation strategies for disclosing negative aspects. The findings indicated that the categorization framework was still relevant. However a redefinition was proposed to reflect mandatory sustainability reporting disclosures more accurately. Furthermore, the results revealed that the apparel retail firms, despite being under mandatory compliance, still aimed to mitigate negative aspects in their sustainability reports. It was revealed that firms directly interacted with stakeholders through the report and underlined them as fundamental for maintaining their reputation. This study proposes how apparel retail firms, operating within a standardized legal framework, communicate their negative ESG actions and attempt to mitigate their impacts. The practical implication includes its usage in the auditing process in order to examine credibility. Moreover, the research can also be relevant for stakeholders, ensuring that their interests are considered in the firms’ practices. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9206279
- author
- Johannesson, Agnes LU ; Karyd, Emilia LU and Persson, Linnéa Anna Ingrid LU
- supervisor
- organization
- alternative title
- A Legitimacy-Based Analysis of How Firms Disclose Negative Aspects In Sustainability Reporting Under the CSRD
- course
- IBUH19 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Sustainability Reporting, Annual Reports, European Union (EU), Legitimacy Theory, European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), Environment, Social, Governance (ESG), Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Apparel Retail Industry, Stakeholders, Negative Sustainability Aspects, Legitimation Strategies, Mandatory Compliance
- language
- English
- id
- 9206279
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-27 09:57:47
- date last changed
- 2025-06-27 09:57:47
@misc{9206279,
abstract = {{Sustainability reporting remains a well-established field of research, with many important contributions. Additionally, the public has a growing desire for firms to adopt responsible ESG practices, thus requiring more transparency and accountability. Without the acceptance from the public, the business might face negative consequences. The understanding of how sustainability reporting is disclosed under mandatory legal compliance remains, to some extent, ambiguous due to its novelty. With the new implementation of the CSRD starting this year for firms within the EU, firms are forced to disclose more sustainability-related information than previously, thus prior research is limited. The objective of this study was to examine seven major apparel retail firms within the EU and investigate how they legitimize themselves through the mandatory framework of ESRS within the CSRD. The apparel retail industry was chosen due to its scrutinized nature. The data collected were extracted from the chosen firms’ 2024 annual reports, and the method applied was a qualitative content analysis. The data was further categorized into a pre-existing framework of legitimation strategies for disclosing negative aspects. The findings indicated that the categorization framework was still relevant. However a redefinition was proposed to reflect mandatory sustainability reporting disclosures more accurately. Furthermore, the results revealed that the apparel retail firms, despite being under mandatory compliance, still aimed to mitigate negative aspects in their sustainability reports. It was revealed that firms directly interacted with stakeholders through the report and underlined them as fundamental for maintaining their reputation. This study proposes how apparel retail firms, operating within a standardized legal framework, communicate their negative ESG actions and attempt to mitigate their impacts. The practical implication includes its usage in the auditing process in order to examine credibility. Moreover, the research can also be relevant for stakeholders, ensuring that their interests are considered in the firms’ practices.}},
author = {{Johannesson, Agnes and Karyd, Emilia and Persson, Linnéa Anna Ingrid}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Dressing Up the Damage: Sustainability Reporting in the Apparel Retail Industry}},
year = {{2025}},
}