Annual reports and ESAP

Annual reports are widely regarded as one of the most reliable and granular sources of sustainability information in the hospitality sector, as they combine financial disclosures with detailed non-financial data on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. They provide firm-specific insights into areas such as carbon emissions, energy use, water management, labour practices, governance structures, and strategic priorities. Increasingly aligned with regulatory requirements (e.g., CSRD in Europe) and standardised frameworks, such as ESRS, GRI and IFRS, enable comparability while retaining industry-specific nuance. As such, they offer rich, contextualised evidence for assessing how hospitality firms embed sustainability in their business models, risk management, and long-term value creation. A key challenge is improving trustworthiness, and hotel-level vs corporate-level KPIs.

View by Melinda Ratkai, Dr. Professor of Hospitality Business, Hotelschool The Hague

At Hotelschool The Hague, the Business Resilience and ESG chair builds on these primary data sources to conduct applied research on how hospitality organisations can strengthen resilience while accelerating sustainable transformation. By combining document analysis (e.g., annual and integrated reports), industry collaboration, and empirical research, the group generates evidence-based insights for both academia and practice. A key challenge is identifying AI-driven tools that can enhance document analysis and enable effective benchmarking across organisations. Therefore, we strongly support the European Union’s initiative to establish the European Single Access Point (ESAP), which -according to the latest timeline- is expected to go live in July 2027, and we look forward to the increased transparency, accessibility, and comparability of ESG data it will enable.

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