Sustainability reports: An alternative view (original) (raw)
Related papers
sustainability and sustainability reporting
Imagine a world in which you are at the center of a corporate reporting process that is focused on value creation: value creation in relation to your customers, critical resources, intellectual capital and your company’s position in society. Sustainability is “an approach to creating long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks deriving from economic, environmental, and social trends and challenges. Sustainability reporting is not required or regulated in most part of the world. However, interest is growing around issues such as resources consumed and value created (or destroyed), as well as intense scrutiny of more diverse stakeholder groups. This report gives insight on the current state of sustainability reporting among companies and suggestion on whether sustainability reporting should be made mandatory or voluntary.
Credible Claim or Corporate Spin?: A Checklist to Evaluate Corporate Sustainability Reports
Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management, 2013
In response to the establishment of universally-accepted principles about sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporations are now producing Sustainability Reports (SRs). Corporations are expected to document their positive and negative impacts on society. However, the veracity of the information in these reports is being questioned. To what extent is it greenwashing? While the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides a framework for reporting, effective mechanisms to evaluate reports are lacking. We propose a Sustainability Reporting Assessment Checklist of 10 questions as a functional tool for use by stakeholders to evaluate the content of SRs. For a demonstration of the effectiveness of the checklist, it is applied to a real but anonymous company. The questions cover: accessibility; readability; the use of an established framework (e.g. GRI); incorporation of CSR and sustainability into long-term strategy; consideration of all relevant aspects of operation...
The effectiveness of sustainability reporting: Is it only about the report's design and contents?
2000
Nowadays sustainability reporting is gaining its popularity as a communication instrument between a corporation and its stakeholders. Despite all development in the discussions of the production and publication of a sustainability report (SR), there are still a few empirical analyses on the communication process with an SR between a corporation and its stakeholders. This paper aims to explore this issue.
The TQM Journal
PurposeThis paper explores quality science and quality management as a potential pathway to resolve the challenges of corporate sustainability reporting (CSR) by establishing the need for a common understanding of sustainability and sustainable development.Design/methodology/approachSecondary research on key documents released by regulatory institutions working at the intersection of sustainability, corporate reporting, measurement and academic papers on quality science and management.FindingsExisting measurement frameworks of CSR are limited. They are neither aligned nor appropriate for accurately measuring a company's ecological footprint for mitigating climate change. Quality for sustainability (Q4S) could be a conceptual framework to bring about an appropriate level of measurability to better align sustainability reporting to stakeholder needs.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a lack of primary data. The research is based on secondary literature review. The implicati...
… Business & Economics Research Journal (IBER), 2010
Over the last years, sustainable development has become one of the major issues that all global organizations are facing. The Global Reporting Initiative, located in the Netherlands and considered the leading authority world-wide, has developed what is currently considered the common framework for sustainability reporting. The latest version of their reporting guidelines called G3 contains detailed instructions and standards on how to prepare sustainability reports. The goal of this study is to determine if there are significant differences with regard to size, financial performance, capital structure, and corporate governance between firms that publish a G3 sustainability report to those that don't. The results of this analysis show that corporations with the characteristics of being located in Europe, and/or being active in the energy or producing sector, and/or with a higher profit margin are more likely to produce high quality sustainability reports. Corporations with a higher long-term growth rate, on the other hand, are less likely to produce sustainability reports.
Does Sustainability Reporting have Sustenance? A Marketing Ploy or Management Tool
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2015
Sustainability efforts encompass economic, social and environmental management. After decades of promoting such causes, sustainability finally has moved up to the boardroom agenda per PricewaterhouseCooper 2012 report. As companies incorporate sustainability into business strategy, it is crucial for accountants and financial managers to capture the financial implications of those sustainable practices. This case provides an in-depth review of current reporting and measurement of sustainable practices and outlines properties of a sustainable model. Students will analyze reasons for corporations to provide sustainability reports and examine limitations of current sustainability reporting practices. Students are advised to consider what enhancement in current reporting could increase the economic value of reporting efforts and evaluate the relative contribution of sustainable practices that improve firm performance. This case illustrates development of corporate sustainability reporting, the importance of collecting relevant data, analyzing operational data, reporting in accounting and financial terms, incorporating sustainability when making strategic business decisions.
Sustainability reporting: An overview of the recent development
2021
This study aims to provide an extensive overview of the current state of sustainability reporting through the review studies on sustainability reports (SR) in the accounting literature for the period 2015–2020. A structured literature review (SLR) methodology is used to investigate how the SR literature develops and focuses. The study uses keywords such as “sustainability report” and “sustainability reporting” to identify studies that are relevant to a given topic. A total of 44 published studies were found. This study identifies the main directions of SR research in the 2015–2020 period and discusses several important aspects of research, namely methodology, research methods, and the theory used. To enrich the results, this study defines the scope, country of research, topics and sectors studied. The study provides insight into future SR research used by researchers to develop SR research. Several things are proposed that can be used as a guide for future SR research, such as susta...
Recent Trends in Sustainability Reporting: Literature Review and Implications for Future Research
2020
Sustainability reporting has become a topical issue in recent years as it is no longer enough to make claims about the sustainability level of companies, but it is also necessary to demonstrate their sustainability efforts. For this purpose, sustainability reporting has grown from a voluntary basis into a legal obligation for some organizations, which speaks in favor of the importance of sustainable business globally. This paper aims to provide a wider perspective and theoretical support for research on sustainability reporting. A literature review of 52 papers from the Web of Science database indicates the following eight aspects as a trend in the literature reviews of sustainability reporting: Assurance, Boards, Communication, Framework, Impact, Indicators, Materiality and Practices. The paper highlights problems and provides challenges related to sustainability reporting and research opportunities for exploring sustainability reporting in future studies.
This descriptive research study is done to analyze the aspects of sustainable/CSR reporting in the progressive literature over the past two decades. The main purpose is to find similarities and connections across studies about some key aspects that can cause sustainability reporting a fruitless exercise for organizations. The study also highlights the significance of Stakeholder Theory and Triple bottom line and its relevance in sustainability reporting which results in more awareness among the internal stakeholders (Managers) and external stakeholders.