How Sustainability Regulation Reshapes Visual Disclosure: Evidence from the NFRD and CSRD
Type
dissertation project
Start Date
May 1, 2026
Keywords
visuals
sustainability regulation
multimodal
Description
Sustainability reporting is increasingly standardized and assured, yet their visual disclosures
remain largely outside the regulatory perimeter. This study examines if and how mandatory
sustainability regulation disciplines firms’ visual disclosure strategies or instead redirects
impression management into visual communication. Exploiting the sequential introduction of
the European Union’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) and Corporate Sustain-
ability Reporting Directive (CSRD) as quasi-natural experiments, we analyze how changes
in the regulatory prescriptiveness of textual disclosures influences the composition of visual
disclosures in corporate sustainability disclosures. The empirical setting combines a large-scale
hand-collected sample of more than 12,000 sustainability reports with approximately 300,000
extracted visual elements from European firms over financial years 2011–2024. Visuals are
classified along two dimensions: visual type (photographs versus graphics) and informational
content (generic versus specific), yielding a 2×2 framework that distinguishes symbolic from
more substantive visual communication. The study contributes to the emerging literature
on multimodal corporate disclosure by providing the first systematic evidence on how sus-
tainability regulation shapes visual disclosure practices. More broadly, it informs ongoing
policy debates by showing whether stricter reporting requirements indirectly discipline visual
communication or leave visuals as a residual channel for impression management.
remain largely outside the regulatory perimeter. This study examines if and how mandatory
sustainability regulation disciplines firms’ visual disclosure strategies or instead redirects
impression management into visual communication. Exploiting the sequential introduction of
the European Union’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) and Corporate Sustain-
ability Reporting Directive (CSRD) as quasi-natural experiments, we analyze how changes
in the regulatory prescriptiveness of textual disclosures influences the composition of visual
disclosures in corporate sustainability disclosures. The empirical setting combines a large-scale
hand-collected sample of more than 12,000 sustainability reports with approximately 300,000
extracted visual elements from European firms over financial years 2011–2024. Visuals are
classified along two dimensions: visual type (photographs versus graphics) and informational
content (generic versus specific), yielding a 2×2 framework that distinguishes symbolic from
more substantive visual communication. The study contributes to the emerging literature
on multimodal corporate disclosure by providing the first systematic evidence on how sus-
tainability regulation shapes visual disclosure practices. More broadly, it informs ongoing
policy debates by showing whether stricter reporting requirements indirectly discipline visual
communication or leave visuals as a residual channel for impression management.
Leader contributor(s)
Member contributor(s)