Sustainability reporting in agrifood systems: A systematic review of implementation challenges and pathways

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) represents a major shift in European Union environmental governance, requiring companies to disclose environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts across their value chains. The agrifood sector, a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and resource use, is central to implementing this directive. This study provides a systematic analysis of CSRD requirements within agrifood systems, applying a PRISMA-based review of policy documents, scientific literature, and sector-specific evidence. The study maps the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) to key agrifood activities and identifies the most material environmental domains, including climate change, water use, biodiversity, and resource efficiency. The findings highlight critical implementation challenges, particularly related to data availability, Scope 3 emissions accounting, and limited standardisation of sustainability metrics. Furthermore, disparities in organisational capacity affect firms' ability to comply with reporting requirements. The study contributes to the policy–practice interface by clarifying how CSRD is operationalised within complex value chains and by identifying pathways to improve reporting effectiveness through enhanced metric harmonisation, regulatory clarity, and stakeholder engagement.