G&A Institute's New Research Shows 2024 Sustainability Reporting Rose to Record Levels as S&P 500(R) Companies Reach 99% Reporting

Reporting Gap Between Large-Cap and Mid-Cap Companies Narrows with 90% Reporting Among Smaller Half of Russell 1000® Companies

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / October 15, 2025 / Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. (G&A), a leading corporate sustainability consulting and research firm, today announced the findings of its 2025 Sustainability Reporting in Focus research report, focused on corporate reporting trends in the 2024 publication year for companies in the S&P 500 Index and the Russell 1000 Index. The research shows continued increases in sustainability reporting for both large-cap and mid-cap U.S. public companies^[1], as publishing an annual sustainability report is now widely recognized as a best practice for U.S. public companies. The 14th edition of G&A's annual research report is available here.

2025Sustainability Reporting in Focus provides detailed data and findings from G&A's research into U.S. company reporting on sustainability (also called ESG, corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, or social impact reports). G&A's team analyzes corporate reporting content including frameworks and standards used - such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (SASB), Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) - as well as alignment with initiatives such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), trends in external assurance, and CDP reporting. For this year's research, we also began tracking alignment with new reporting initiatives: the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Sustainability Standards, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), and the Task Force for Nature-related Disclosures (TNFD).

G&A's 2025 research includes sector-specific analysis of reporting trends within all 11 sectors of the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS), to provide additional insights into reporting behavior per industry sector.

Key takeaways from G&A's new research report include:

• A record 94% of Russell 1000 companies reported on sustainability in 2024, up from 93% in 2023.

• The smaller half by market cap of the Russell 1000 (mid-cap companies with approximately $2 billion-$4 billion in market cap) had the greatest alignment in reporting in 2024 - reaching 90% compared to 87% in 2023.

• The larger half by market cap of the Russell 1000 (i.e., the S&P 500) are nearing 100% reporters with a record 99% reporting on sustainability in 2024, compared to 98.6% in 2023.