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Sustainability Reporting (sustainability + reporting)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	33%

Selected Abstracts

Sustainability reporting: Creating an internal self-driving mechanism

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2006
Irene M. Herremans
First page of article [source]

The Global Reporting Initiative and corporate sustainability reporting in Swedish companies

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2003
Carl-Johan Hedberg
With empirical evidence from Swedish companies, this paper analyses the phenomenon of corporate sustainability reporting (CSR) in general and the use of CSR guidelines developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in particular. The main questions at issue are why companies have chosen to use the GRI guidelines and how this has affected corporate social responsibility and environmental management. From interviews with all Swedish companies that use the guidelines, we have found that companies produce CSRs mainly to seek organizational legitimacy, and that the main reason for use of the GRI guidelines is an expectation of increasing credibility of the CSR, but also that it provides a template for how to design a report. Moreover, we have found that the CSR report and the GRI guidelines are of more help for internal than external communication at this stage of development. It could help corporations to learn about themselves and to see what has actually been done in the organization. In all, the GRI guidelines would have the potential for gaining visibility and control of the triple bottom line on a corporate level, but they are in need of further development, not least in relation to the issue of verification. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

Current Developments and Trends in Social and Environmental Auditing, Reporting and Attestation: A Review and Comment

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDITING, Issue 3 2000
Rob Gray
This is a discursive paper which attempts to provide a personal review of current and recent developments in social and environmental reporting with particular emphasis on the attestation and auditing implications. The paper takes the essential desirability of social, environmental and sustainability reporting as a crucial element in any well-functioning democracy as a given. It further assumes that any civilised, but complex, society with pretensions to social justice, that seeks a potentially sustainable future and which wishes to try and rediscover some less exploitative and less insulated relationship with the natural environment, needs social and environmental reporting as one component in redirecting its social and economic organisation. With reporting being such a central issue, the paper further takes good quality attestation of that information as essential to both its reliability and its ability to fulfill its required role in developing transparency and accountability. The paper has three motifs: the need to clarify terminology in the field of social and environmental ,audits'; the current weakness of attestation practices in the area; and the significant , but unfulfilled , promise offered by professional accounting and auditing education and training. The paper concludes with a call for a substantial re-think of accounting education and training. [source]

Assurance of Sustainability Reports: Impact on Report Users' Confidence and Perceptions of Information Credibility

AUSTRALIAN ACCOUNTING REVIEW, Issue 3 2009
Kristy Hodge
This study examines whether (1) assurance, (2) the level of assurance (reasonable vs limited) and (3) the type of assurance practitioner (accountant vs specialist consultant) affect users' perceptions of reliability of sustainability reports. Based on an experimental questionnaire, we find that the provision of assurance improves perceived reliability of the environmental and social information. There are no significant main effects for both the level of assurance and type of assurance practitioner. However, a significant interaction is found between these two experimental factors and report users' perceptions of reliability of such reports. More specifically, report users place more confidence in sustainability reports when the level of assurance provided is reasonable (that is, high but not absolute), and when such assurance is provided by a top tier accountancy firm, compared to when the assurance is provided by a specialist consultant. No such difference is found when the level of assurance provided is limited for either type of assurance practitioner group. The results of this study thus highlight the relevance of assurance for sustainability reporting. [source]

Measuring organizational performance: beyond the triple bottom line

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 3 2009
Graham Hubbard
Abstract Measuring organizational performance is difficult, especially when what has to be measured keeps changing. Sustainability concepts have dramatically widened the scope of measurement options and leading organizations are grappling with sustainability reporting, but there is no sign of consensus on a common reporting standard and the competing frameworks are impossibly complex. This paper recognizes that measuring sustainable performance has to be conceptually based but simplified to be practically useful. It proposes a stakeholder-based, Sustainable Balanced Scorecard (SBSC) conceptual framework coupled with a single-measure Organizational Sustainability Performance Index to integrate the measures in the SBSC. The Index helps make sustainable organizational performance measurable and accessible to stakeholders. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

Internet use for corporate environmental reporting: current challenges,technical benefits,practical guidance

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 3 2002
Ralf Isenmann
The huge opportunities of using the internet for corporate reporting are arranged in a comprehensive system of technical benefits. In order to give a tangible example and describe practical use thoroughly, the benefits are focused on environmental reporting but they can be transferred in major parts also to financial, social or sustainability reporting,seen as a currently emerging trend towards integrated financial, environmental and social reporting. In more detail, the system of internet-specific benefits is illustrated by four main categories: benefits concerning the underlying purposes of publishing reports, benefits concerning the entire reporting process, benefits concerning the report contents and benefits concerning the report design. In terms of corporate reporting, professional internet use will enhance the way in which companies give information, communicate and manage their business internally and externally, benefiting all members involved that are reporting companies, addressed key target groups and other stakeholders such as standard setting institutions and benchmarking organizations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment [source]