Drawing on legitimacy theory, this study examines the extent of corporate engage￾ment with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) through assessing the corporate disclosure quality of SDG-related information in a mandated setting environment, focusing on the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Based on corporate sustainability reports for 132 UAE publicly listed companies in years 2020 and 20,221, we use a scoring methodology incorporating the GRI standards related to the economic, envi￾ronmental and social impacts of corporate operations. Results of the study reveal that UAE companies use mandatory sustainability reports as a legitimacy tool through a symbolic action superficially integrating SDGs targets into their corporate operations and activities. However, in year 2021 the results show that some compa￾nies act substantively by adopting substantive organizational structural changes to integrate SDGs in their business operations and reporting behavior. Unlike previous studies, the paper contributes to the literature and practice by examining the corpo￾rate disclosure quality of SDGs in a mandated setting environment. This mandatory context offers an opportunity for a comprehensive analysis of company endeavors regarding their symbolic execution aimed at projecting a surface display of commit￾ment to SDGs, versus their substantive implementation, which leads to significant enhancements in corporate sustainability reports. The findings of this study offer valuable practical implications for regulators and policymakers regarding the imple￾mentation of mandatory sustainability reporting. While such reporting may not nec￾essarily result in significant changes in terms of integrating SDGs targets into business strategies and operations, it could potentially lead to the adoption of “SDG￾washing” practices by companies.