The New Business Challenges Faced in the European Union: Understanding the Idea behind Corporate Responsibility

Abstract

Nowadays the corporate sector is a prominent stakeholder in the sustainability field. Companies across the world are starting to look at more environmentally friendly business practices, largely because of the urgent climate situation and because of the highest demand for these practices from the market. Furthermore, sustainability disclosure, formerly entirely optional, has progressively become required in several nations during the past years, especially in the European Union and among businesses and production sectors. Plus, the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), which requires certain major corporations with EU headquarters to provide sustainability data, was adopted by the European Parliament in 2014. Later, additional regulatory actions have been taken, and in 2021 the European Commission has launched a new political agreement on the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), to respond to the growing criticism regarding the reporting criteria, while increasing the reporting obligations’ level of detail. The given paper is focused on the analysis of the processes of sustainability of Romanian and European companies, more exactly about the most common CSR practices of companies. This paper aims to provide further implications for policymakers, students and researchers whilst promoting sustainability and being of use to business leaders.

Keywords

• european legislation
• corporate responsibility
• financial performance
• business challenges
• companies