By adopting the Paris Agreement on climate change and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (the Sustainable Development Goals), governments around the world have committed themselves to fostering a change towards a more sustainable economy. Firms play a major role in this transition and the disclosure of sustainability information enables the measuring, monitoring and managing of firms’ sustainability performance. This course gives an overview of the relevance, nature and practice of corporate sustainability reporting and related concepts. Based on an introduction into the relevance of sustainability for different stakeholders and a critical reflection on the role of accounting in this context, the most common voluntary sustainability reporting standards are discussed (e.g., GRI, ESRS, IFRS Sustainability Reporting Standards, etc.). Next, the current state of and on-going developments in the regulatory environment are assessed with a particular focus on the European Union (e.g., NFRD, CSRD, EU Taxonomy, etc.). The course provides a hands-on approach to sustainability reporting.

Professional skills:

• Understand the basic concepts of sustainability and the challenges it poses for businesses.
• Critically reflect on the role of accounting and reporting for achieving sustainable development.
• Explain the potential reasons for and consequences of sustainability reporting, including the underlying theories and their limits.
• Recognize, understand and be able to apply the different concepts of materiality in the context of sustainability reporting.
• Understand and be able to explain and describe the regulatory developments in the EU with regard to sustainability reporting.
• Describe and apply the process steps for establishing a sustainability reporting system.
• Be able to critically analyze sustainability reporting of an organization against the background of EU regulatory landscape on sustainability reporting.

Social and personal skills:

• Be able to collaborate effectively with a team of fellow students to complete in-class exercises.
• Be able to structure problems adequately and develop potential solutions to these problems, including critical discussions and reflections on such solutions.
• Be able to communicate in the classroom clearly, concisely, and logically.

Skills in scientific work:

• Understand the different aspects of voluntary disclosure as well as the foundations of disclosure derived from accounting theory.
• Be able to apply content analysis to evaluate the sustainability reporting of an organization.

Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung: 80% minimum. 

Throughout the course, classroom exercises and case studies are used to confront students with “real-life” problems. Additional insights are provided from practitioners through keynote speeches on specific topics.

Homework and Presentation (40%), in-class participation (20%), final exam (40%)

(1) Homework and Presentation (40%): Groups of students are assigned to prepare specific cases and present the results in classroom.

(2) In-class participation (20%): Throughout the course, students are asked to participate in classroom exercises and discussions.

(3) Final exam (40%): The final written exam covers the contents of the course.

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