Non-financial information: From voluntary to compulsory compliance. The state of the art in Italian context

The issue of corporate communication is very relevant in the context of accounting literature. Historically, it has focused on economic and financial information, disclosured through the financial statements. Over time, complementary information, concerning the environmental, social context, intellectual capital, business model, has assumed greater importance. Consequently, the debate regarding the need for more advanced forms of reporting, which is able to compose the different dimensions of the process of value creation by the organizations, has been intensified. These trends have found in our country a specific regulatory constraint, such as Legislative Decree no. 254/2016, which introduces for the first time the obligation to integrate the statutory financial statements with a “non-financial” report on the company’s environmental, social and governance policies. Before issuing this decree, the reference was to the Integrated Report, promoted by the GRI, which in fifteen years has become the main reference standard worldwide. Integrated Reporting (IR) is a form of business reporting to link financial and not financial information, such as governance, strategy and environmental policies. With the introduction of Legislative Decree no. 254/2016, fully implemented on 30th December 2016, the 2014/95/EU Directive was implemented. This decree was published in the Official Gazette on 10th January 2017 and entered into force on 25th January 2017. The decree has extended the cases compared to those indicated in the European directive, providing, in addition to the sanctioning profiles in case of non-compliance by the obliged companies, the possibility recognition of a “reputational attribution” to institutions, which, although not obliged to comply, prepare a non-financial declaration in accordance with the provision. This paper, after initially describing the situation prior to the introduction of the directive, will shift the attention to the new legislative decree, finally devoting attention to the application of the legislation by Italian listed companies, trying to highlight the level of adjustment to this obligation and whether there is a form of uniformity in the manner in which the non-financial statement is published and in its content.