Peculiarities of non-financial reporting development in Ukraine

Abstract

Under the condition of sustainable development, corporate social responsibility (CSR) becomes more important, and can be the key to improving the company's image and competitiveness on the market. Areas and forms of CSR implementation are numerous, one of which is the company's reporting on socially responsible practices. The importance of non-financial reporting is also emphasized by the Concept of state policy in the field of promoting corporate social responsibility in Ukraine until 2030 that highlights the necessity to publish non-financial reporting, which substantiates the topic of this scientific article. The purpose of the article is to determine the features of the introduction and dissemination of the practice of compiling and forms of non-financial reporting in Ukraine as a direction of manifestation of social responsibility of business. Methods of the article include analytical, statistical, comparison, and extrapolation ones etc. Theoretical analysis allows determining the main standards by which non-financial reports can be generated. These include: Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), UN Global Compact Report, AA1000 Standard, SA 8000: 2001 Social Responsibility Standard, and ISO 26000 Standard. Among the most common are the GRI Standard and UN Global Compact Report. The practical results of the study reveal that in Ukraine the number of GRI reports has increased compared to 2008, but this development is uneven. A comparison of the number of non-financial reports in Ukraine and Europe according to the Corporate Register found out that the number of reports in European countries has different trends: a decrease in 2017-2018 in some countries (UK, Germany, and France) and a subsequent revival to gradual growth in all countries. Analysis of the Transparency Index, calculated by the Center for the Development of Corporate Social Responsibility that considers the websites of companies based on CSR information for the period 2012-2020 reflects a change of countries that are leaders in this indicator. A positive characteristic is that among the TOP-10 companies there are not only private enterprises, but also state-owned ones. Overall indicators of CSR practices tend to increase and reflect the growing importance of this area of corporate social responsibility.