The Structural Evolution of Corporate Sustainability Disclosure: Evidence from China’s “Dual Carbon” Goal

International efforts to address climate change have emphasized the necessity for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. In alignment with these efforts, China introduced the “Dual Carbon” goal as a key climate and energy policy. Since companies are the primary actors in implementing this policy, this study examines the structural evolution of sustainability reporting of Chinese-listed companies under the “Dual Carbon” goal, with a focus on changes in keyword emphasis, thematic structure, and keyword centrality. Drawing on a sample of 7860 sustainability disclosure (CSR, ESG, SD, and ENV) from 2019 to 2023, this study adopted word frequency analysis, LDA topic modelling, and co-occurrence network analysis. The main results are a) “Dual Carbon” related keywords saw a statistically significant increase after 2020; b) the thematic lineage Climate & Emission Strategy became the fastest growing and dominant disclosure theme; and c) in 2023 co-occurrence network “Dual Carbon” exhibited high semantic centrality and formed a super hub; “Digitalization” and “Governance” functioned as connector to link separate narrative clusters. These results suggest a substantial shift of narrative priority and logic toward climate and emission reduction strategies in Chinese-listed companies’ sustainability disclosure within the institutional context of the “Dual Carbon” goal.