The maturity of supply chain sustainability disclosure from a continuous improvement

TLDR: In this paper, the authors investigated the maturity levels of sustainability disclosure from a continuous improvement perspective and proposed an improvement framework for reporting and implementing sustainability initiatives across the supply chain, which would not only help researchers to study SCS and stakeholders to read sustainability reports, but would also enable practitioners to improve the quality and reliability of the data disclosed, especially as they apply to the supply-chain.

Abstract: Purpose – From a continuous improvement perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the levels of maturity attained by organisations in reporting their supply chain (as well as non-supply chain) sustainability initiatives. It also investigates the extent to which supply chain sustainability (SCS) disclosure varies between different business sectors, as well as the degree of interconnection between various sustainability criteria. Subsequently, it proposes an improvement framework for reporting and implementing sustainability initiatives across the supply chain. Design/methodology/approach – To carry out this investigation, corporate sustainability reports of selected companies in ten different industries are downloaded and assessed. The paper uses content analysis and principal component analysis to study the disclosure maturity levels of the different industrial sectors. Findings – The paper’s results show that the disclosure maturity level is higher in business-toconsumer industries than in business-to-business industries on both the social and environmental dimensions. The paper also shows that the highly polluting energy sector is the least advanced in disclosing SCS initiatives. Generally speaking, there is no clear pattern in the way organisations disclose sustainability information. The conclusion is that sustainability disclosure is not yet homogeneously structured across different business sectors and organisations are yet to attain the “adult” maturity age. Originality/value – Very few researchers can claim to have investigated the maturity levels of SCS disclosure from a continuous improvement perspective. This is probably due to the absence of a universally accepted framework that clearly defines the scope of sustainability. The paper tries to fill this gap by proposing a framework that would not only help researchers to study SCS and stakeholders to read sustainability reports, but would also enable practitioners to improve the quality and reliability of the data disclosed, especially as they apply to the supply chain.