Drivers of sustainability reporting by local governments over time: A structured literature review

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the current state of the literature on sustainability reporting by local governments. It focuses on the reasons why municipalities use sustainability reporting and what contingency factors incentivize or disincentivize its implementation. The study is based on a structured literature review of 190 papers, published in journals on business, environment, and accountancy, covering a 35‐year period (1987–2021). We find that sustainability reporting by local governments can be explained from interrelated theoretical perspectives, mainly legitimacy, stakeholder, institutional, and accountability theory. The implementation of sustainability reporting is influenced by contextual factors; the main determinants are organizational and political variables. Based on the papers we reviewed, we provide policy recommendations to improve sustainability reporting in practice and make suggestions for future research.