An Analysis of Sustainability Reporting Practices of the Global Airline Industry

Eljas Johansson

doi:10.34190/ictr.15.1.234

An Analysis of Sustainability Reporting Practices of the Global Airline Industry

Abstract

Sustainability reporting (SR) has become a standard practice for many organisations worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to explore and develop our understanding of the global airline industry’s SR practices. Content analysis was employed to map which reporting frameworks the global commercial airline industry has recently used to report their non-financial impacts. Additionally, comparisons were made in the application of SR between geographical regions. The results indicate that two-thirds of the global airline companies had not published sustainability reports online (reporting period 2019). The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was the most widely used reporting instrument from the five major non-financial reporting organisations’ frameworks. Also, over two-thirds of the reports had used the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a reference framework or referenced SDGs in other ways. This paper provides one of the broadest overviews of global airline SR practices. It is expected that the results will be of interest to practitioners and scholars in aviation SR.