Business transparency now spans sustainability reporting, board oversight, workforce information, tax administration, lobbying, and beneficial ownership. The latest figures show broad growth in corporate disclosure, but also a persistent gap between reporting that reaches most market value and reporting that covers every company or the most decision-useful details.
Contents
- Sustainability disclosure coverage
- Assurance and reporting standards
- Boards, stakeholders, and workers
- Energy-sector transparency
- Tax transparency and multinational reporting
- Ownership registers and corporate-transparency benchmarks
Sustainability disclosure coverage
Sustainability reporting is widespread among listed companies when measured by market value. The OECD’s Key policy insights: Global Corporate Sustainability Report 2025 found that sustainability-related disclosures covered 91% of global listed-company market capitalisation in 2024, up from 86% in 2022. By company count, however, 12,900 of 44,152 listed companies worldwide disclosed sustainability information in 2024. These are different lenses: a high market-capitalisation percentage does not mean that most listed companies report.
State ownership also matters. In 2024, 63% of state-owned enterprises disclosed sustainability information, representing 95% of SOE market capitalisation. Across industries, disclosure coverage ranged from 78% to 94% of market capitalisation. Real estate was at the lower end: companies reporting sustainability information represented 78% of the sector’s market capitalisation.
Emissions reporting was less complete than general sustainability reporting. In real estate, 74% of market capitalisation disclosed Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse-gas emissions, while 55% disclosed at least one Scope 3 category. Globally, 11,135 companies disclosed Scope 1 and 2 emissions, representing 88% of market capitalisation, and 7,712 disclosed at least one Scope 3 category, representing 76%.
The OECD also reported commercial estimates covering 16,000 companies and 95% of global market capitalisation for Scope 1 and 2 emissions in 2024. That estimate is not the same as company-reported disclosure, so it should not be treated as an independently verified reporting rate.
| 2024 sustainability measure | Coverage reported |
|---|---|
| Sustainability information, global listed-company market capitalisation | 91% |
| Scope 1 and 2 emissions, global market capitalisation | 88% |
| At least one Scope 3 category, global market capitalisation | 76% |
| Sustainability information, real-estate market capitalisation | 78% |
| Scope 1 and 2 emissions, real-estate market capitalisation | 74% |
| At least one Scope 3 category, real-estate market capitalisation | 55% |
Assurance and reporting standards
Disclosure volume is only one part of transparency. Assurance of sustainability disclosures rose from 66% of global market capitalisation in 2022 to 81% in 2024, according to the OECD report. Yet the level of assurance varied: limited assurance covered 56% of global market capitalisation in 2024, compared with 17% for reasonable assurance. Just under 15% of companies assuring Scope 1 and 2 emissions provided reasonable assurance.
Country differences were substantial. In China in 2024, assured sustainability disclosures covered 19% of companies and 51% of market capitalisation. In the United States, they covered 39% of companies and 83% of market capitalisation. The percentages by company count and market capitalisation should be read separately because large companies can dominate the latter measure.
The OECD’s 2024 comparison counted 582 companies using ISSB standards, either partially aligned or claiming compliance. It counted 4,857 companies using the TCFD recommendations, 3,497 using SASB standards, and more than 6,500 using GRI standards. These counts describe reported use in the comparison; they do not establish that every company applied each framework in the same way.
At least 1,800 EU-listed companies were expected to fall under ESRS requirements starting in 2025. This was a forecast published in 2024, not a completed count of companies that ultimately reported under the requirements.
Source: Key policy insights: Global Corporate Sustainability Report 2025, OECD.
Boards, stakeholders, and workers
Board-level attention to climate issues increased. Companies representing 70% of global market capitalisation reported board oversight of climate-related issues in 2024, up from 53% in 2022. Climate change was considered a financially material risk by companies representing 65% of global market capitalisation in 2024.
Stakeholder engagement was also frequently disclosed. More than 9,600 companies, representing 86% of global market capitalisation, disclosed shareholder-engagement policies in 2024. The number was 1,000 higher than in 2022. These figures indicate more published policy information, but they do not measure whether engagement changed decisions or outcomes.
Workforce transparency was more uneven. Two-thirds of listed-company employees were neither represented by trade unions nor covered by collective-bargaining agreements in 2024. Companies representing 11% of global market capitalisation had employee representatives on their boards. The geographic comparison was wide: board-level employee representation covered 59% of market capitalisation in China, 39% in Europe, and 9% in Latin America.
Operational workforce metrics were reported by a majority of market value, but not all. More than 8,400 companies representing 60% of global market capitalisation reported employee-turnover data in 2024. More than 7,350 companies representing 57% reported average annual employee-training hours. Human-capital risks were considered financially material by companies representing 68% of global market capitalisation.
For leaders, the pattern is a reminder that transparency has several audiences. Investors may receive risk and oversight information while employees still lack representation or comparable workforce metrics. A disclosure system is more informative when it identifies both the policy and the people affected by it.
Energy-sector transparency
Energy companies had high overall sustainability-disclosure coverage, but important gaps remained in policy influence and transition investment. Energy companies representing 94% of sector market capitalisation reported sustainability information in 2024, the highest rate among industries. Scope 1 and 2 emissions disclosure covered 90% of energy-sector market capitalisation.
The sector was especially significant in emissions reporting: it accounted for almost one-third of greenhouse-gas emissions disclosed by listed companies in the OECD’s 2024 sample. State-owned enterprises accounted for 32% of the energy sector’s disclosed emissions. Yet fewer than half of energy companies by market capitalisation reported Scope 3 data in Emerging Asia and the Middle East and Africa.
Transparency about influence and spending was much less common. Only 7% of listed energy companies disclosed their climate-policy positions in 2024, and only 15% reported their business-association memberships. Large listed energy companies disclosed average lobbying expenditures of USD 3.5 million. Only 2.5% reported environmental research and development, and only 7% disclosed environmental capital expenditure.
| Energy-sector disclosure indicator | 2024 result |
|---|---|
| Sustainability information, sector market capitalisation | 94% |
| Scope 1 and 2 emissions, sector market capitalisation | 90% |
| Listed companies disclosing climate-policy positions | 7% |
| Listed companies reporting business-association memberships | 15% |
| Listed companies reporting environmental R&D | 2.5% |
| Listed companies disclosing environmental capital expenditure | 7% |
Source: Key policy insights: Global Corporate Sustainability Report 2025, OECD.
Tax transparency and multinational reporting
Tax transparency operates through administrative information exchange as well as corporate reports. By 2025, 116 jurisdictions had commenced automatic exchange of financial-account information, and 13 more had committed to do so by 2028. In 2024, information on 171 million financial accounts covering almost EUR 13 trillion in assets was automatically exchanged.
In 2024, 139 jurisdictions reported engaging in exchange of information on request. Requests made that year concerned at least 32,000 taxpayers. Enhanced tax-transparency measures had identified at least EUR 135 billion in additional revenues by 2025, reported from activity since 2009. Developing countries had identified about EUR 48 billion of those additional revenues. These are reported revenues identified through transparency measures, not a measure of all tax evasion or all business activity.
The international framework was still expanding. Seventy-five jurisdictions had committed to implement the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework by 2025. More than 4,300 bilateral country-by-country-report exchange relationships were activated by March 2024.
The scale of corporate taxation provides context. Corporate Tax Statistics 2024 reported that corporate tax represented 16.0% of total tax revenue on average across 123 jurisdictions in 2021. Corporate tax revenue averaged 3.2% of GDP across those 123 jurisdictions in 2021. These are 2021 averages, not current global rates or a forecast.
Sources: International community meets in New Delhi to reflect on latest advances in global tax transparency, OECD; and Corporate Tax Statistics 2024, OECD.
Ownership registers and corporate-transparency benchmarks
Beneficial-ownership transparency focuses on who ultimately owns or controls a business. In Open Ownership’s September 2026 snapshot, 104 countries had a live beneficial-ownership register, 31 were implementing beneficial-ownership-transparency reforms, and 35 had planned reforms. The register counts are a snapshot of publicly available country-status data and may not be comprehensive.
Historical regulatory benchmarks can add context, but they must be dated. The World Bank’s 2019 corporate-transparency index measured seven corporate-disclosure components on a 0-to-7 scale and was discontinued after the Doing Business project. In that 2019 benchmark, Indonesia and Ukraine scored 7 out of 7; India and the United Kingdom scored 6; Vietnam scored 5; the United States scored 5.4; and Mexico scored 3.
| Country | World Bank corporate-transparency index, 2019 |
|---|---|
| Indonesia | 7/7 |
| Ukraine | 7/7 |
| India | 6/7 |
| United Kingdom | 6/7 |
| United States | 5.4/7 |
| Vietnam | 5/7 |
| Mexico | 3/7 |
The index is a historical regulatory benchmark, not a current 2026 score. Its results should not be combined with the newer Open Ownership register snapshot as though they measured the same thing.
Sources: Open Ownership map: Worldwide action on beneficial ownership transparency, Open Ownership; and Protecting minority investors: Extent of corporate transparency index (0-7) (DB15-20 methodology), World Bank.