The evolution of corporate reporting toward sustainability has accelerated in recent years in response to growing social and stakeholder expectations. While in the 80s and 90s attention to environmental and social issues led to the emergence of the first environmental and social reports, these experiences were still episodic, fragmented, and often outsourced to external consultants. Only in the new millennium was the need for broader and more structured reporting consolidated, including governance aspects such as management and board compensation. This evolution has led to the convergence of environmental, social, economic and governance issues into a unified concept of sustainability, understood not as the sum of separate factors, but as a balance between them to ensure business continuity over time. Sustainability reporting stimulates greater strategic awareness in companies and opens up new areas of work and expertise, generating the need for new professional figures integrated into corporate reporting. Internationally, some key developments are influencing the regulatory framework. In September 2020, the IFRS Foundation published a consultation paper for the creation of a sustainability standard, focusing particularly on climate change aspects.Additionally, the merger between IIRC and SASB led to the creation of the Value Reporting Foundation, with the goal of simplifying and making corporate reporting more consistent. Finally, in April 2021, the European Union proposed a new Sustainability Reporting Directive, which will expand the number of companies involved and entrust EFRAG with the task of developing new European standards for reporting, requiring companies to adapt quickly to the changes taking place.
