RENDICONTAZIONE DI SOSTENIBILITÀ E ATTESTAZIONE DI CONFORMITÀ DEL REVISORE

This thesis deals with disclosure requirements on ESG issues, imposed on some corporations, with particular reference to sustainability reporting (formerly non-financial reporting) under Directive EU No. 2022/2464, known as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (or “CSRD”). In the first chapter, this paper conducts a reconnaissance of the regulation of such disclosure requirements, also investigating their rationale. The latter is believed to be the elision of information asymmetries aimed at an efficient allocation of resources, but considering in an innovative sense the concept of “efficiency” as referring not only to the profit parameter, but also considering environmental, social and governance issues. In the second chapter, having ascertained that the purpose of ESG disclosure requirements is similar to that of classically financial reporting, the paper analyzes the relationship between sustainability reporting, on the one hand, and financial statements and management reports on the other hand. As mentioned above, the function of these documents is the same (the elision of information asymmetries) and this can only result in the presence of meeting points between them, both in physiology and pathology. Thus, it was explored in depth how sustainability reporting affects the preparation of the annual financial statements and how any flaws in the sustainability reporting can affect the validity of the resolution approving the financial statements, either as nullity or as annulment. To do this, the management report, a document that most closely resembles sustainability reporting in terms of type and the way in which information is presented, was used as a term of comparison. Lastly, in the third chapter, the thesis considers the audit of sustainability reporting. Such audit has the same function as the statutory audit of financial statements, namely, to make the disclosed information reliable, so that it can achieve the purpose of elision of information asymmetries. Therefore, the discipline of the sustainability auditor was considered, with unavoidable references to the discipline of the statutory auditor.