Title: Sustainability Reports: What Do Stakeholders Really Want?
Abstract: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYManagement accountants are becoming more involved in corporate sustainability reporting as companies rapidly ramp up their efforts in this area. Yet what sustainability means-and what reports should cover-depends on whom you ask. Consumer stake - holders view corporate sustainability differently than companies do, so current reports may not be what all corporate stakeholders want.This article is based on research supported by the IMA® Research Foundation.Companies are increasingly spending time and effort reporting their sustainability activities. Some organizations report mainly on environmental issues. Others, however, see sustainability as a multidimensional concept, so they also report on economically and socially responsible activities. This view of sustainability is often called the three-legged stool or the triple bottom line.Are these sustainability reports giving stakeholders what they really want? And do stakeholders think about sustain - ability the same way corporations do? We conducted some research to find out.Accountants Are More InvolvedManagement accountants are getting more involved in developing and presenting sustainability information as sustain - ability practices become increasingly important and assurance for sustainability data is more common. Also, top management is recognizing that accountants' education, skills, and rigor are especially valuable for preparing and presenting sustainability information.Report content varies widely. Some reports are glossy marketing brochures posted on companies' websites and used for marketing propaganda. Other reports are more rigorous. Some companies use their own reporting criteria or follow national reporting criteria. But many companies use the criteria developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), an international not-for-profit organization that promotes the use of sustainability reporting. The GRI is a network of thousands of professionals and organizations from many industries, regions, and constituencies. Its reporting criteria are most notable and pervasive. The GRI suggests-but does not mandate-approximately 80 indicators (activities) for companies to report on in six different dimensions (see Table 1). These dimensions represent the six categories of corporate activities judged to fulfill corporate responsibilities implied by triple-bottom-line reporting. Many companies register their sustainability reports with the GRI, and the reports are stored in a sustainability disclosure database that provides access to an abundance of voluntarily reported company sustainability information.Because the indicators are merely suggestions, companies are not uniform in which sustainability activities they report. And companies that do not register also release sustainability reports. It is hard to compare GRIcompliant reports, let alone all the other reports from unregistered companies. Also, there are many selfdeclared reports, which are not checked by a third party. Current trends and efforts by companies as well as organizations with regulatory oversight provide a strong indication that companies are moving from selfdeclared verification to voluntary third-party verification of sustainability information with mandated verification by regulators on the horizon. Then it will become even more imperative that accountants have a deep understanding of corporate sustainability and use their expertise to ensure accurate information.The GRI and other organizations have prescribed guidelines specifying which corporate sustainability activities belong in each sustainability dimension. But there is a lack of research determining whether prescribed activities and dimensions match stakeholders' priorities. Which activities do stakeholders feel belong in each dimension-or in completely new dimensions? Are there other activities even more important to stakeholders? Do organizations' corporate sustainability narratives match those of their stakeholders? …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-09-22
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 3
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