Sustainability Insights
MDR Wissen features the Sustainability Reporting Navigator and interviews Thorsten Sellhorn
- Thorsten Sellhorn
- Sustainability reporting
- Large Language Models
- Targeted Transparency
The Sustainability Reporting Navigator (SRN) and our study Assessing Corporate Sustainability with Large Language Models: Evidence from Europe were recently featured by MDR Wissen. For the article, Thorsten Sellhorn was interviewed about the study’s findings and the role of transparency in corporate sustainability reporting.
The article explains how the SRN uses AI to analyse around 9,000 sustainability reports covering 1.7 million pages. As author Thorsten Sellhorn puts it: “No one reads 9,000 reports with 1.7 million pages. That is why we programmed an AI system to do exactly that.”
The analysis shows that companies now report more extensively on greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water use, and workforce-related matters. However, important gaps remain, especially in areas such as pollution and biodiversity. The study also finds that direct emissions have fallen on average and that the reported share of renewable energy has almost doubled.
At the same time, more reporting does not automatically mean more sustainable business practices. Companies appear to improve particularly in areas that receive greater public and regulatory attention. As Thorsten Sellhorn describes in the interview, “Transparency is a means, not an end in itself. Reports alone do not reduce emissions.”
The MDR article offers an accessible overview of what the growing volume of sustainability data can tell us and where corporate reporting still has room to improve.
To read the full article (German-version only), click the link below: