Readability of Sustainability Reports, ESG Ratings and Financial Performance of European Companies (FY2024)

This dataset contains cross-sectional data for 101 European listed companies from the Consumer Goods (n = 56) and Food and Beverage (n = 45) sectors for the 2024 financial year. For each company it provides: (1) five readability indices of the FY2024 sustainability report (Flesch Reading-Ease, Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog Index, SMOG Index, Automated Readability Index), report length in pages, and a composite readability measure (first principal component, PC1); (2) LSEG ESG ratings on a 0–5 scale (overall score and Environmental, Social and Governance pillars), retrieved from the public LSEG Sustainability Ratings and Data platform on 1 August 2026; (3) financial data in EUR (net profit, net sales, total equity, total assets) and derived indicators (ROA, ROE, ROS, leverage, log of assets and sales).

Sustainability reports and financial data were obtained from corporate websites and the Sustainability Reporting Navigator. Readability indices were calculated by the authors using the generative AI tool Claude Sonnet 5.

The dataset supports the manuscript "The Dual Role of Sustainability Report Readability: ESG Performance Implications and the Obfuscation Hypothesis" (under review). Variable definitions are given in README.md and in the "Variables" sheet of the Excel file.