What Drives Firms' Engagement with the UN SDGs: UK Evidence

There are mounting pressures on businesses from different stakeholder groups to disclose their commitments towards sustainable development via engagement and compliance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, research investigating corporate reporting on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is still in its embryonic stage. To understand the current state of the art in this new form of reporting and factors that might impact variation in SDG reporting, it is important to examine the extent of SDGs reporting amongst the UK FTSE All-Share index and investigate the factors that impact this disclosure including the impact of corporate governance mechanisms in improving the extent and quality of that form of reporting. The results revealed that the sample companies did only start supporting SDGs in 2019, more than 3 years after its first introduction. The results also suggest that the extent of adoption is still very limited, as the total average score for the SDGs amongst the sample companies across the investigated period is 29%. A number of factors were found to influence the adoption of SDGs including firm size, board, size, gender diversity and the presence of CSR strategy. It is believed that our findings can improve the understanding and generate new insights for businesses policy makers and other interested parties regarding SDG reporting.