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Corporate Sustainability Reporting
There are many definitions of sustainability reporting, but here is the one that informs this
discussion:
Sustainability reporting makes the connection between corporate financial
performance and corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) behavior transparent and traceable.
By corporate, we mean public and private sector businesses, government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), referred to as organizations below. In reality there is some overlap
between sustainability reporting and other related reporting categories, including Corporate
Responsibility (CR) and Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) reporting.
In practice, when a sustainability report is provided by an organization, it takes the form of a
printed or online PDF document focused on ESG behavior data and ESG strategy specifically.
This report is usually separate and disconnected from the rest of the annual report that is
traditionally focused on financial performance data and corporate strategy generally.
However, many organizations now provide their sustainability reports in the form of interactive
websites, and a few have gone further and embraced the integration of their financial performance data with ESG behavior data to create what Eccles and Krzus [1] call an integrated or
One Report.
The table below lists examples of sustainability/corporate responsibility reports that have won
international awards for their information and clarity (see the references section for links to
these reports).
What is Sustainability Reporting? There are many definitions of sustainability reporting, but here is the one that informs this discussion: Sustainability reporting makes the connection between corporate financial performance and corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) behavior transparent and traceable. By corporate, we mean public and private sector businesses, government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), referred to as organizations below. In reality there is some overlap between sustainability reporting and other related reporting categories, including Corporate Responsibility (CR) and Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) reporting. In practice, when a sustainability report is provided by an organization, it takes the form of a printed or online PDF document focused on ESG behavior data and ESG strategy specifically. This report is usually separate and disconnected from the rest of the annual report that is traditionally focused on financial performance data and corporate strategy generally. However, many organizations now provide their sustainability reports in the form of interactive websites, and a few have gone further and embraced the integration of their financial performance data with ESG behavior data to create what Eccles and Krzus [1] call an integrated or One Report. Why doing a Corporate Sustainability Report? There are at least four reasons why organizations compile and publish sustainability reports:
References
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