Entwicklung eines Nachhaltigkeitsdashboards für die Bereiche Soziales und Governance im Rahmenwerk der EU-Regulatorik

Abstract

Sustainability is no longer just a trend - it is a decisive factor for the success of companies. Sustainability regulations are currently piling up within the EU - from the EU Taxonomy Regulation to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The legislative body is therefore the biggest driver of this development. However, other stakeholders such as customers are also demanding transparent sustainability reporting. Although mandatory sustainability reporting in accordance with the European Sustainability Reporting Standards is a new challenge, it offers a great opportunity to stand out from the competition. This master's thesis focuses on the areas of social issues and governance and shows how companies can develop perception-optimised sustainability reporting in an interactive dashboard. The EU framework, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, and voluntary frameworks, the Global Reporting Initiative and the Sustainable Development Goals, are first explained as the basis for the content of the sustainability dashboard. Relevant key figures for the sustainability dashboard are identified from these frameworks. The sustainability dashboard is created in Power BI for a specially created sample company based on the reporting design guidelines of the ICV statement ‘Excellence in Reporting Design’. In addition, visualisations and interaction possibilities not yet tested in the literature are assessed by means of a quasi-experiment using the technology acceptance model. The results of the quasi-experiment are then analysed in SPSS Statistics from IBM using covariance analysis and a chi-square test. The sample dashboard shows 89 key figures, 50 of which are mandatory under the ESRS, 13 from the GRI, five from the SDGs and 21 from HR controlling to enable overall management. The results of the quasi-experiment show that a homepage should display either key figures or key figures in conjunction with text modules. In addition, a colour concept has a positive effect on the perceived usefulness and usability of sustainability dashboards. Target and threshold values should not only be marked in colour, but also in the legend. In addition, the deviations in the diagram should be shown as a percentage and displayed in colour, in green for positive values and in red for negative values. It is recommended to use combined lines and bar charts instead of inbar charts. The use of tooltips is also recommended. If a diagram has a tooltip, this should be emphasised with a symbol. All of these results and the findings from the narrative literature research are incorporated into the final product of this master's thesis, the interactive sustainability dashboard for the areas social and governance. This thesis can therefore be used as a guideline for creating a sustainability dashboard for internal and external reporting. The design recommendations in this master's thesis increase the acceptance and subsequently the use of a sustainability dashboard.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	German (Austria)
Supervisor	Christoph Eisl (Supervisor)