Governance & Policy
Voluntary Disclosure
Definition
Voluntary disclosure is the publication of sustainability, ESG or climate information that is not legally required — through frameworks such as GRI, CDP questionnaires, SASB and (formerly) TCFD. Voluntary regimes built the field: GRI created reporting practice from the 1990s, CDP's investor-requested disclosures made carbon data routine for thousands of companies, and voluntary adoption proved the feasibility of what regulators later mandated (CSRD, ISSB-based rules, SECR).
References
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This reference provides supporting context for how “Voluntary Disclosure” is defined and used.
Overview
How it is used
The concept structures analysis of reporting adoption, the CDP system, early-mover corporate strategy, and the evolution from voluntary to mandatory regimes.
Why it matters
Voluntary disclosure was the laboratory where sustainability reporting was invented — and its failures wrote the specifications for the law that followed.