The challenges of sustainability reporting and their management: the case of Estra

This paper investigates the challenges that companies could face over time when dealing with sustainability reporting and focuses on potential mechanisms they may adopt to cope with them. The investigation is conducted adopting the theoretical framework proposed by Baret and Helfrich (2018) and using a longitudinal case study. We found that the challenges that gradually arose induced the evolution of sustainability reporting. Dissemination, employees’ involvement, managerial commitment, and routinization/institutionalization of reporting practices appeared to be useful mechanisms to face the related challenges. Conversely, we found that stakeholders’ engagement scarcely affected sustainability reporting. Furthermore, the legislation impacted the extent and quality of disclosed contents and fostered the standardization of the reporting process. In analysing how Estra faced sustainability reporting challenges, the article emphasizes the mechanisms that can be used to properly manage them, in a gradual and holistic way. Hence, the study offers a useful example for companies approaching sustainability reporting for the first time. We adopt a holistic theoretical perspective providing evidence on how sustainability reporting development within a company depends on the continuous and integrated management of its multiple challenges, also suggesting that its interdependencies with the definition and execution of sustainability should be exploited