The sustainable development goals (SDGs) reflect grand challenges that the global community needs to address in order to ensure economic welfare, environmental quality, social cohesion and prosperity for future generations. In this respect, the role of the banking sector, among other critical business entities and key stakeholders, is vital. The purpose of our paper is to examine how comprehensively the reported performance of banks aligns with the endorsement of SDGs. We employ the well‐established framework of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) performance indicators for a comparative assessment of the nonfinancial performance disclosed in the annual sustainability reports. Focusing on a small sample of leading European banks, we find an overall low contribution to SDGs. Furthermore, each bank's contribution remains particularly heterogeneous towards most individual SDG goals. Likewise, bank‐specific strategies drive the most extensively addressed SDGs, overlooking any critical importance of certain GRI indicators with multifaceted impact across several SDGs. The study sets forth managerial implications for improving effective reporting of SDG performance. It concludes with emerging opportunities for enhancing disclosure of SDGs contribution and highlights future research perspectives towards industry‐wide shared‐value appraisal under the scope of these pressing grand challenges.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the macro-level and well-established dimensions of national culture offered by Hofstede's framework. Design/methodology/approach: We employ a composite index for quantifying CSR proliferation and present new findings on the role of cultural specificity-proxied by Hofstede's dimensions-on CSR endorsement among national business sectors. Findings: Results indicate that cultural perspectives pertaining to 'long-term versus short-term orientation' as well as 'indulgence versus restraint' affect positively the composite CSR index, while 'uncertainty avoidance' has a negative impact. In contrast, the effect of 'power distance', 'individualism' and 'masculinity' is found to be insignificant. Originality/value: The study offers new insights to institutional and culture theorists and political economy researchers for a deeper investigation of informal institutions, such as culture, which shape national or regional specificities of CSR and retain a moderating effect on the voluntary/self-regulation activities of business entities.

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, evaluation scoring systems for triple bottom line (TBL) reports to date are examined and potential methodological weaknesses and problems are highlighted. In this context, a new assessment methodology is presented based explicitly on the most widely acknowledged standard on non-financial reporting worldwide, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. The set of GRI topics and performance indicators was converted into scoring criteria while the generic scoring devise was set from 0 to 4 points. Secondly, the proposed benchmark tool was applied to the TBL reports published by Greek companies. Results reveal major gaps in reporting practices, stressing the need for the further development of internal systems and processes in order to collect essential non-financial performance data. A critical overview of the structure and rationale of the evaluation tool in conjunction with the Greek case study is discussed while recommendations for future research on the field of this relatively new form of reporting are suggested.

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