Appendix: References and sources
01 2025 Corporate reporting enforcement and regulatory activities report
ESMA
European Securities and Markets Authority, 2025. Reports ESMA’s enforcement of European corporate disclosure, including ESEF iXBRL filing statistics across 30 EEA jurisdictions and the first round of CSRD/ESRS examinations.
02 CSRD, ESRS and the digitalisation of sustainability reporting
Münch, A., et al.
Journal of Management Control, 2025. Review of the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the twelve ESRS standards, plus design principles for an ESG reporting platform and interaction with the ISSB IFRS S1 and S2 standards.
→ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00187-025-00398-5
03 DIR — GenAI as a reader of annual reports
Bertulessi, M., et al.
University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten, HHL Leipzig & nexxar, 2025. Empirical study of how ChatGPT consumes annual reports. Finds 58.5% of citations link to annual reports and that HTML reports are cited 3.05× more than PDFs.
→ https://www.ustp.at/en/stories/news/study-ai-optimised-reporting
04 Digital First is Here: produce great HTML design and tag a report natively
DeVille, M.
Digital Reporting Made Simple (Medium), 2024. Practitioner essay on the production-level shift from PDF-first to digital-first annual reporting.
→ https://medium.com/xbrl-made-simple/digital-first-is-here-cbdce5167727
05 Global trends and research evolution of XBRL adoption in financial reporting
Judijanto, L., et al.
Bibliometric review of 1,200+ studies, 2025. Identifies the maturation of XBRL from a regulatory mandate into a technical foundation for digital transformation.
06 The benefits of digital reporting
F19 Digital Reporting
Industry briefing, 2024. Discusses GRI, TCFD, IFRS and the evolution of voluntary sustainability frameworks into mandatory regimes.
→ https://f19digitalreporting.com/blog/the-benefits-of-digital-reporting/
07 IFRS S1 and S2 — first ISSB sustainability standards
IFRS Foundation / ISSB
2023. The two inaugural standards from the International Sustainability Standards Board, formed in 2022 through consolidation of the CDSB and Value Reporting Foundation.
→ https://www.ifrs.org/groups/international-sustainability-standards-board/
08 Integrated reporting, stakeholders’ perspective and sustainable disclosure
Izzo, M. F., et al.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2025. Systematic insights from empirical resear ch on integrated reporting.
→ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/csr.3212
09 The digitalisation of corporate sustainability reporting — a systematic literature review
Hyk, V., Vysochan, O. & Vysochan, O.
Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 2026. Reviews 193 publications and identifies AI/ML, blockchain and iXBRL as the three dominant technical directions.
→ https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/19/3/167
10 Busted: six digital reporting myths
XBRL International
XBRL.org, 2024. Defines inline XBRL and addresses common misconceptions about its costs, complexity, and assurance implications.
→ https://www.xbrl.org/busted-six-digital-reporting-myths/
11 The determinants of XBRL adoption — a cross-country study
Sassi, W., Ben Othman, H. & Hussainey, K.
International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, 2024. Examines how legal origin, accounting tradition and regulator strength shape XBRL adoption.
→ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41310-023-00192-6
12 Structured Digital Reporting: Insights 2025/26
FRC
Financial Reporting Council (UK), May 2026. Review of 30 UK listed companies’ digital reports; finds the format well embedded but flags recurring tagging-quality issues and notes AI tools increasingly rely on the machine-readable XHTML version.
→ https://www.frc.org.uk/library/digital-reporting/structured-digital-reporting-insights-202526/
13 Can AI be trusted with financial data?
Farr, B., Johnson, P., Markelevich, A. & Montecinos, J.
2025. Empirical study of AI error rates extracting financial line items under four formats — no-context, text, HTML, and XBRL. Hallucinations drop below 2% with XBRL.
→ https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/xbrl-cuts-ai-errors-in-reading-company-filings-study-finds/
14 Metadata integrity in digital disclosures — a multilevel study
Mendoza, A., et al.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2026. Quantifies how HTML and XHTML/XBRL reduce incoherence between narrative, tables and tagged values.
→ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-07367-w
15 Why AI is accelerating the shift to digital-first reporting
DeVille, M.
Medium, 2025. Practitioner essay drawing on the Friend Studio engagement data (14× / 60× / 10×) and discussing the strategic implications of AI as a primary reader.
→ https://medium.com/@mdeville.uk/d94e6a1499bd
16 Don’t drive to the moon — guidance on iXBRL production workflows
XBRL International
XBRL.org, 2024. Explains the structural difference between native iXBRL/HTML production and post-hoc conversion of a PDF.
→ https://www.xbrl.org/dont-drive-to-the-moon/
17 ESEF — guidance for issuers
AFM
Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, 2024. Recommends issuers start with an HTML-based document rather than rely on PDF conversion.
18 Webinar: conversion versus digital-first
F19 Digital Reporting
2025. F19 / ESEF webinar comparing the two production models, with case examples and a side-by-side flow diagram.
→ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Q9IlT39qk
19 Tracing the evolutionary path of visual disclosure research in corporate reporting
Del Gesso, C.
Management Research Review, 2025. Longitudinal co-word analysis of three decades of visual-disclosure research; finds visuals shifting from decoration to a core carrier of meaning, with integrated-reporting value-creation visuals an emerging frontier.
20 EY CSRD Barometer 2025 — setting the baseline
EY
Ernst & Young, 2025. First-time-application analysis of 200 CSRD-compliant sustainability statements; covers report structure, length, visualisation of the materiality process, and assurance.
21 Corporate art: the annual report as an object of design
Erlandsson, F. / IR Impact
IR Impact, 2025. Two decades of annual-report design trends; identifies infographics, storytelling, sustainability integration, accessibility and interactivity as the defining quality dimensions.
→ https://www.ir-impact.com/2025/07/corporate-art-the-annual-report-as-an-object-of-design/
22 Enhancing sustainability communication: the value of storytelling, leadership and transparency
Bergström, J. / Comprend
Comprend, 2025. Webranking 2024–25 evidence on storytelling, case studies and leadership voice in sustainability communication — including the gap between what companies publish and what investors want.