Considering the negative effect of anthropological activities on climate in recent decades, all countries entailed a universal commitment to fight against climate change by boosting innovation and introducing new technologies. In this context, our paper aimed to investigate the impact of innovation input in terms of research and development (R&D) costs and technology expressed as technical equipment and machinery (TEM) on the reported greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in chemical industry companies in five Central and Eastern European countries. This study employed a panel regression model with fixed effects and covered data from 2015 to 2020. The empirical results emphasize a negative relationship between R&D costs and GHG emissions, indicating the companies’ commitment to developing innovative solutions that contribute to lower destructive emissions. Additionally, the findings related to the influence of TEM on GHG emissions reveal a positive impact, highlighting the need to improve manufacturing technologies. The practical implications of our findings can be meaningful for both policymakers and businesses operating in the chemical industry in developing countries. Policymakers should offer financial incentives to support research and investments in clean technologies, while businesses should prioritise such investments to mitigate GHG emissions.

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) was adopted in order to improve the quality of this type of reporting in the European Union. However, its scope and requirements were quickly softened in order to reduce the reporting burden on companies. This paper is an exploratory multiple case study of twelve sustainability statements published for the financial years 2024 and 2025 by six top Romanian companies in terms of capitalization. It aims to analyze how companies operationalize the structured disclosure requirements of the CSRD and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) in practice. A 70-item coverage index is combined with an in-depth reading of each statement. Findings indicate that the aggregate number of disclosure requirements is approximately the same in both years, and the datapoints that can be sourced inside the reporting boundary are better covered than those depending on value chain actors. Companies disclose heterogeneous reports, some of them including more substantive disclosures, while still failing to establish concrete, quantitative sustainability targets. In most cases, the story told by the sustainability statements is made up of isolated pieces instead of painting a complete picture. The qualitative reading shows that a covered datapoint is frequently a statement of intention, a deferral or a declaration of non-materiality rather than a substantive disclosure. To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to analyze both CSRD and ESRS reporting cycles in a Central and Eastern European setting.