Sustainability Reporting in Aviation - A Key to Successful Stakeholder Communication?

Abstract

In the modern-day business world, the concepts of sustainability and corporate social responsibility are of ever-increasing importance. Industry sectors and corporations with significant environmental impacts are facing increasing pressure from stakeholders to mitigate those impacts and to transform their business activities towards greater sustainability. As a result, airlines are among those who must deal with tightening environmental regulations and increasing taxation, due to their carbon emissions and the resulting contribution to climate change. Since there is a lack of large-scale technical solutions to reduce emissions in the foreseeable future, the issue of sustainability promises to be a challenging managerial task. This report evaluates the performances of the airlines when it comes to communicating their sustainability efforts. The sustainability publications of Europe’s five largest airline groups – Lufthansa Group, International Airlines Group, Air France-KLM, Ryanair, and easyJet – are evaluated with the help of the guidelines and standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). A qualitative approach in the form of a structuring content analysis according to Mayring is chosen for this research. The structuring categories are derived from the best practice approach for sustainability reports provided by the GRI framework. The volumes and formats of the reported content, the depths of detail, as well as gaps and deviations from best practice are evaluated to provide practical recommendations for airline managers to enhance their sustainability marketing. The results of the analysis indicate that the efforts regarding sustainability significantly differ according to an airline’s business model, with low cost carriers reporting significantly less efforts regarding corporate social responsibility. Irrespective of the business model, the reporting of four out of the five airline groups has considerable potential for improvement. While Air France-KLM is the only airline group to follow a balanced approach by providing comprehensive reporting across all dimensions of sustainability, the other airline groups systematically neglect to highlight their efforts and significance regarding the economic dimension of sustainability. Given the increasing pressure from environmental activists, legislators, and the wider public, the airline groups are recommended to improve their sustainability marketing by publishing standalone sustainability reports that equally reflect their efforts regarding economic, environmental, and social aspects of sustainability. Against the backdrop of the exacerbating climate crisis, the management of sustainability and corporate social responsibility is identified as essential for an airline’s business success over the next years and even decades.