Mapping and nexus of RO to R9 principles of the circular economy with Artificial Intelligence within the context of the integrated reporting framework

The article builds on the current debate on how to include sustainability-related data and information into accounting corporate reporting practices. In detail, the article focuses on Circular Economy (CE), Integrated Reporting (IR) and artificial intelligence (AI). The CE is gaining interest and rapidly rising in political and business agendas. At the same time, IR represents one of the latest innovations in corporate and sustainability reporting. Indeed, the three of them could be mutually beneficial through their joint use and loop shape. Companies have enhanced sustainability disclosure and incorporated AI and CE-related information into their corporate reporting practices (Tiscini et al., 2022; Esposito et al., 2023). As a result, stakeholders are urging businesses to increase transparency in their disclosure processes (Barnabè & Nazir, 2022). While the development of several guidelines and standards to improve the quality of environmental disclosure and growing awareness of critical environmental issues, resource efficiency, and waste management (Barnabè & Nazir, 2021; Esposito et al., 2023; Raimo et al., 2022), A very subjective approach already characterises the CE disclosure, but this does not apply to AI. To overcome this, the study has emerged as an IR comprehensive framework for CE disclosure procedures, providing a new reporting method particularly suited for disclosing environmental, social, governance, and CE information, as well as AI information. Some researchers and practitioners have begun to discover CE disclosure in the IR context. Significant research has investigated how CE is disclosed across different geographic regions (Barnabè & Nazir, 2021), combining analyses of integrated and sustainability reports. Other scientific contributions have explored the interaction between IR and CE disclosure, presenting theoretical insights in light of integrated thinking (Barnabè & Nazir, 2022). Particularly, Nazir & Doni (2024) have extracted and identified the most accepted CE-related ideas from IR, demonstrating the potential of this tool to provide CE information. Similarly, Barnabè and Nazir (2022) have suggested that IR concepts occupy a performative position, enabling a deeper understanding of CE initiatives and possibilities through a forward-looking approach; however, they do not explore AI. However, a gap remains when these three concepts are combined to explore how AI can support the manufacturing industries, helping companies disclose their financial and non-financial information to stakeholders, and to what extent this process is quick and transparent. AI helps collect massive amounts of data, but it does not provide a framework or standard; a framework is still required. Moreover, reporting standards are not yet available in all of these contexts. Starting from these considerations, this study aims to discuss: a) How and to what extent do companies disclose RO-R9 principles of CE and AI principles in integrated reporting practices? b) How and to what extent do RO-R9 principles support and promote companies' financial performance and non-financial performance?