As pressure mounts on businesses to demonstrate environmental and social responsibility, corporate sustainability reports are coming under closer scrutiny. Companies increasingly disclose how they address climate change, food safety, labour rights and other environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns. But which issues receive the most attention, and how are those priorities changing?

Researchers at Kyushu University have developed an AI-powered approach to uncover corporate sustainability priorities. Examining Japan’s food and beverage industry, they found that companies emphasise social issues more than environmental concerns, although attention to greenhouse gas emissions has increased. The study was published in Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management on September 16, 2026.

“High-quality ESG disclosure helps stakeholders assess business performance and risks,” says Siyu Shen, a graduate student at Kyushu University’s Graduate School of Economics and the study’s first author. “Yet counting mentions, or judging whether the language sounds positive or negative, tells us little about how seriously a company treats those issues.”

Using industry-specific standards from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), the researchers analysed 1,623 annual securities reports from 340 publicly listed Japanese food and beverage companies between 2020 and 2024. The industry faces significant sustainability challenges because of its dependence on agricultural resources, energy and complex supply chains.

The team employed Text Match Pre-Trained Transformer (TMPT), a multilingual AI model that identifies meaningful connections between corporate disclosures and ESG issues. Unlike conventional keyword searches, TMPT recognises similar concepts expressed differently, such as “greenhouse gas emissions” and “CO₂ emissions”. It also measures relevance, distinguishing detailed emissions-reduction figures from broad environmental commitments.

“Another advantage of TMPT is that it uses zero-shot analysis,” explains Professor Hidemichi Fujii of Kyushu University’s Faculty of Economics. “It doesn’t require researchers to manually write prompts or provide subjective guidance, making the analysis more standardized and reproducible.”

The findings show that product quality and customer welfare dominate corporate disclosures, while environmental topics such as water and energy management receive comparatively less attention. However, priorities began shifting after 2022, with greenhouse gas emissions recording the largest increase, followed by human capital and supply chain management. The strongest growth in emissions-related disclosures occurred among companies listed on Japan’s Prime Market, coinciding with new climate reporting requirements aligned with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

“Our findings show that clear, industry-specific disclosure requirements from regulators can influence which ESG issues companies prioritize,” Shen says. The researchers believe their approach could help businesses focus reporting resources on financially material sustainability issues while giving investors a clearer picture of corporate priorities. They plan to expand the framework to other industries and countries, incorporate sustainability reports, and develop methods to assess disclosure quality and credibility.

More information: Siyu Shen et al, Do Firms Disclose Financially Material ESG Risks? Evidence From Japanese Food and Beverage Firms Using a Text Match Pretrained Transformer, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management. DOI: 10.1002/csr.70990

Journal information: Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Provided by Kyushu University