Information on sustainability has been mandatory since 2018. Henryk Deter and Dominik Stricker from cometis examined the sustainability reports of companies in the DAX family. Anyone who employs more than 500 people must report on sustainability. Information on environmental issues, social concerns and human rights is required. Almost all listed companies have to do justice to this. Against this background, cometis AG systematically evaluated the 2018 non-financial reports submitted by 131 companies in the DAX family. Henryk Deter of cometis commented: “Unfortunately, many reports contain little meaningful phrases. Measurable data on sustainability performance are too seldom mentioned.”

The cometis study documents the efforts made by companies with regard to sustainability. Subdivided into the four areas “Environment”, “Employees”, “Society”, “Compliance and Governance”, the companies provided more than 8,000 company-specific information. As companies provide the most information on the environment, cometis expects to see the greatest progress soon. This is all the more true as measurable data is often available in this field. On the other hand, concrete improvements in the other three areas can only be expected in the distant future. However, this would hardly be possible without standardized reporting. Capital market players should therefore agree on a uniform standard for sustainability reporting.