Background: Disclosure of sustainability reports has been a voluntarily segment until the directive by the EU commission was released. However, companies still uses a variety of principles and guidelines when drafting the reports since there is no methodology provided. The variety in how the information is provided limits the comparison among companies as well as the consistency. Consistency and comparability, which are objectives of the Directive 2014/95/EU, could therefore be improved by providing a standardized framework.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate how a standardized framework would benefit the objectives of Directive 2014/95/EU. In order to fulfil the purpose, the thesis will investigate in what different frameworks and how many frameworks that are used in disclosure of non-financial and diversity information provided by 20 listed EU GOLD Community Members of GRI during 2012-2016. To give a broader perspective of the development of sustainability reporting an investigation will also be made of European companies during 2012-2016.

Method: Qualitative research method was used when collecting the empirical data hence all information was collected from GRI’s database. The collection was based on different qualities such European companies, GRI GOLD community members and number of frameworks. Two different samples was collected. The first sample included all organizations within Europe that disclosed sustainability reports and it also displays the Non-GRI reports. The second sample included 20 listed EU GRI GOLD community members and these companies was randomly picked. The second sample displays number of used frameworks and the most common framework during 2016 of these 20.

Conclusion: The study has identified undesirable trends in the empirical study of sustainability reports hence there are a decrease of number of reports in 2016 and there are a variety of used frameworks. The EU commission needs stricter rules for the scope and what principles hence implement a methodology that should be used when companies disclose their sustainability reports according to directive 2014/94/EU. The conclusion made is that a standardized framework would be beneficial for both companies, the society and in order to fulfil the objective of directive 2014/94/EU.