A Comparative Analysis of Corporate Sustainability Reporting: A Multi-Method Approach to China and the United States

The increasing importance of sustainability reporting requires a deeper understanding of how companies communicate their sustainability efforts across regions and sectors. This study focuses on China and the United States as subjects. By analyzing corporate sustainability reports from these two major economies in 2022, it evaluates the effects of regional and sectoral differences on sustainable practices, with the aim of deepening the understanding of organizational sustainability. Using topic modeling, this study identified the key topics and patterns that companies in the two countries prioritize in their corporate sustainability reporting. A bag-of-words approach was adopted to analyze the attitudes of corporations in two countries toward environmental, social, and governance dimensions, with a focus on sector-specific differences. Finally, sentiment analysis with ClimateBERT assessed the tone of the reports. The findings reveal similarities and sector-specific differences in corporate sustainability reporting between China and the United States, as well as displaying divergent emphases on climate-related risks and opportunities. This study offers a multi-method approach to evaluating corporate sustainability reporting, contributing to a better understanding of sustainability practices in different national and industrial contexts, and offering effective guidance for actual industry regulators and stakeholders.