As the imperative for sustainable business practices and corporate responsibility has grown, the analysis and integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues into corporate strategies has become a crucial aspect of business strategy. The paper assesses the ESG reporting preparedness of companies in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region by analyzing their compliance with the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). The study assesses the variability in disclosures across ESG pillars and examines their relationship with financial metrics using a test of independence and bootstrapped multiple regression. By employing an automated text analysis methodology on sustainability reports from top-performing companies, including Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Slovenia, and Romania, the research identifies significant differences in reporting scores across various ESG disclosure topics. The results indicate that Climate Change (E1) scores are higher than those of other topics, suggesting an uneven emphasis on different aspects of sustainability. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that larger companies tend to achieve higher ESG scores, reflecting their greater resources for comprehensive and transparent reporting practices. The research contributes to the understanding of ESG reporting practices in the CEE region and highlights the importance of improvement in sustainability reporting to foster greater transparency and comparability. The findings suggest policy initiatives to encourage balanced reporting across all ESG topics and that companies, particularly smaller ones, could benefit from capacity-building efforts to enhance their reporting capabilities.

Sustainability reporting has become a crucial tool for global corporations to disclose environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects. This paper examines how corporate sustainability reporting depth varies with firm financial characteristics and with the institutional diversity of European economic systems. Companies are classified using the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) framework, accounting for the economic differences represented by distinct capitalism models. The quantitative design applies dictionary-based text mining to 2022 and 2023 sustainability reports, using ESRS-aligned scoring to measure disclosure breadth and topic coverage. The sample includes the 20 highest-revenue firms from each VoC group. WordStat-based text analytics generate ESRS topic scores and link disclosure outcomes to firm size, profitability, and leverage. Results indicate systematic cross-VoC differences in ESRS coverage, with higher median disclosure breadth in Social-Democrat Economies (SDE) and Mediterranean Capitalism (MED) settings, thinner coverage more common in Continental European Capitalism (CEC) and Eastern and Central European Capitalism (EAST) settings, and Liberal Market Economies (LME) typically occupying an intermediate position. Regression evidence identifies firm size as the most consistent positive determinant of disclosure breadth, while profitability shows weaker or inconsistent associations and leverage is more often linked to thinner environmental coverage. Findings imply that achieving ESRS comparability across Europe require not only harmonized standards but also institution-sensitive implementation and enforcement capable of reducing persistent cross-country differences in disclosure depth.