Sustainability Reporting on Biodiversity and Ecosystems in the European Forest‐Based Sector: An Institutional Analysis

The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) emphasises the importance of corporate sustainability reporting on biodiversity and ecosystems, particularly specified in the European Sustainability Reporting Standard E4 (ESRS E4). This study examines how the European forest‐based sector operationalises ESRS E4 through mandatory disclosures and explores the institutional pressures shaping these practices. Using a qualitative content analysis method on 23 sustainability reports, we assess ESRS E4 disclosures and coercive, mimetic and normative pressures. Overall, these pressures manifest in responses ranging from isomorphism and substantive adaptation to tendencies towards means‐ends decoupling related to specific disclosure obligations. The results reveal a contrast between converging transition plans and policies and diverging practices in terms of actions, targets and metrics. Few disclosed financial effects from biodiversity‐related risks were detected. The findings also indicate that effective biodiversity reporting depends not only on regulatory requirements but also on the development of shared reporting and measurement infrastructures.