Reporting On The Dimensions Of Corporate  Sustainability And Its Impact On Market Returns And The Cost Of Equity Financing
(An applied study of a sample of commercial banks listed in the Iraq Stock Exchange)

Presented to The Council of the College of Administration and Economics – Karbala University It is part of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of science in accounting

By

Amal Fadhil Akhobashah Al-Kaabi

Supervised by

Prof . Dr. Asaad Mohammed Ali Wahhab Al-Awwad

Abstract

The research aims to measure the level of reporting on the dimensions of sustainability for the banks listed in the Iraq Stock Exchange and to indicate the impact of the level of reporting on the dimensions of sustainability on market returns and the cost of equity financing , To achieve the objective of the research, a sample of (10) commercial banks was selected during the period (2016-2021). and the research relied on the applied side on the employment of indicators (ESG) and the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), to analyze the content of the reports of the research sample banks to find out the extent of their commitment to reporting on the dimensions of sustainability by giving (0) to banks that are not committed to the application of reporting and (1) For banks committed to reporting, as for the market returns of shares, they were measured based on the annual closing and opening prices of the shares of commercial banks, the research sample, while the cost of financing by shares was measured using the Capital Assets Measurement Model (CAPM), and the SPSS V 25 statistical package program was used to ensure that The validity of the data for statistical analysis and testing of research hypotheses, and the research reached a set of conclusions, the most important of which is that the level of reporting on the dimensions of sustainability for commercial banks, the research sample during the period ((2016-2021), was ranging between weak and very weak, as the percentage of the general average level of reporting on the economic axis For banks, the research sample was 34.22%, while the average level of reporting on the environmental axis was 7.23%, while the average level of reporting on the social axis was 15.70%, while the average level of reporting on the governance axis was 24.95%, while the average level of reporting on the disclosure axis was Other public 43.72%, the research also found that there is a direct and significant effect of reporting on the dimensions of sustainability in the market returns of the stocks of banks, the research sample, and the presence of an inverse effect that is not significant for reporting on the dimensions of sustainability in the cost of financing by shares, except for the social dimension of sustainability, which had a direct effect And it is not significant in the cost of financing by shares for the banks, the research sample, and the research recommended the need for the state to pay attention to sustainability and report it through issuing laws, regulations, and instructions that oblige companies to report on the dimensions of sustainability according to indicators and standards (GRI).