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Requirement of G4 standards as common practice in sustainability reporting makes it important to understand the readability of such reports. This study contributes to the extant body of literature by assessing the readability of sustainability reports. We investigate several factors such as company size, company age, complexity, domestic versus international, and audited versus unaudited reports and how they contribute to the readability of sustainability reports. We apply text analytics to U.S. and Global firm issued sustainability reports. We also provide evidence about factors that may contribute to the readability of sustainability reports. We find that reports of companies in regulated industries are less readable than other firms' reports. We also find that less complex firms have more readable sustainability reports. This study should provide some insights to users of sustainability reports, standard setters for reporting standards, and for future researchers.

Abstract. Automatic extraction of information from the footnotes of financial statements can be particularly challenging due to a wide variation in filing structure and terminologies. Standardized text and use of data tagging can facilitate this process. This paper: (i) proposes and demonstrates a new hybrid method of taxonomy creation, using historical data; (ii) compares the taxonomy structure using the new method, with that of the existing XBRL US GAAP taxonomy; (iii) shows evidence of structural differences between the official XBRL US GAAP taxonomy and the new hybrid taxonomy and (iv) demonstrates how the tool so developed could be used for more exploratory research. Comparison of this new structure with that of the existing XBRL taxonomy structure reveals that its creation from historical data provides a greater level of aggregation compared to the XBRL US GAAP taxonomy for Pension footnotes.