This paper examines the evolution of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting by analysing a ten-year corpus of annual reports from FTSE 350 companies. Using BERTopic, an advanced topic modelling technique, we identify and subsequently cluster the most important ESG topics, providing significant insights into the reporting landscape. Our findings show how regulatory changes, such as the Non-Financial Reporting Directive, and major events like Covid-19, influence ESG topic prominence. The disclosure of ESG information is primarily determined by regulatory requirements. This is particularly evident in the fact that companies only disclose the diversity on the board, which is mandatory, but not the diversity and inclusion at other levels of the reporting organisation. Furthermore, our study examines the correlation between ESG scores and topic proportions, showing that extensive disclosure on topics like climate risk and stakeholder engagement is positively associated with higher ESG scores, whereas topics like executive remuneration show negative correlations. Our research contributes to the literature by offering a novel methodological approach to ESG analysis and provides insights into the gaps between reporting standards and practices, relevant to standard-setting bodies and regulators.

中文翻译：

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企业可持续发展报告和企业 ESG 评分的文本分析


本文通过分析富时 350 指数公司十年期的年度报告语料库，研究了环境、社会和治理 （ESG） 报告的演变。使用 BERTopic（一种先进的主题建模技术），我们识别并随后聚集最重要的 ESG 主题，从而为报告环境提供重要见解。我们的研究结果显示了监管变化（如非财务报告指令）和 Covid-19 等重大事件如何影响 ESG 主题的突出性。ESG 信息的披露主要取决于监管要求。这一点尤其明显地体现在，公司只披露董事会的多元化，这是强制性的，而没有披露报告组织其他级别的多元化和包容性。此外，我们的研究考察了 ESG 分数与主题比例之间的相关性，表明气候风险和利益相关者参与等主题的广泛披露与较高的 ESG 分数呈正相关，而高管薪酬等主题则呈负相关。我们的研究通过提供一种新的 ESG 分析方法为文献做出贡献，并提供了对报告标准和实践之间差距的见解，这些差距与标准制定机构和监管机构相关。