The reporting process
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Articulate vision and strategy
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Describe governance and management systems
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Determine material issues for reporting
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Select indicators and collect data
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Analyse data and incorporate into narrative
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Provide assurance
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Step 1: Articulate vision and strategy
A sustainability report should set out how a company’s sustainability priorities are integrated into its overall vision and business strategy. These priorities should cover both operational issues, such as health and safety, environmental compliance and labour practices, and longer-term considerations such as climate change risks or access to new energy resources.
Step 2: Describe governance and management systems
Having articulated the vision and strategy, it is important for companies to report on the role of the board and/or executives with regard to sustainability-related governance and management systems.
Step 3: Determine material issues for reporting
The information in a company’s report should be relevant to the report users and should be provided consistently to enable comparability over time and between companies. To ensure information is relevant, a useful approach is to apply a materiality process that identifies which issues to include in a report, and their prominence. The company can then select a consistent set of indicators that provide information on how these ‘material issues’ are being addressed. This approach ensures the company is being responsive to the issues of concern to its stakeholders while avoiding excessive or unnecessary reporting.
Step 4: Select indicators and select data
Identification of a company’s material issues for reporting should inform the selection of indicators. The next stage is to determine what quantitative data and qualitative information will be collected within the company.
Step 5: Analyse data and incorporate into narrative
A sustainability report aims to demonstrate, through quantitative and qualitative evidence, that a company is systematically appraising and responsibly managing its sustainability performance. A major step in the reporting process is to analyse the indicator data and incorporate the results into a narrative that describes performance progress within the context of the sustainability issues.
Step 6: Provide assurance
Inclusion of information to provide assurance on the content of sustainability reports is a common practice. Assurance processes provide an opinion regarding the quality of reported information and can emphasize application of the General reporting principles. Companies generally have their own internal assurance mechanisms, but external assurance may enhance the perceived credibility of a sustainability report. External assurance tends to take the form of audit-based verification or third-party commentary. Both methods may co-exist in a single report, but they are distinct processes.
Categories:
- Reporting
