Amsterdam
27 October 2008
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) today welcomed the findings of the most recent global survey from KPMG which finds that disclosure on corporate economic, environmental and social performance has become the norm among larger companies globally. Now, over 80 per cent of Global Fortune 250 companies (G250) disclose their sustainability performance in “sustainability” or “corporate responsibility” reports.
The KPMG survey – released earlier today – also looked at the largest hundred companies by revenue in 22 countries and found that overall uptake of sustainability reporting was 45 percent with wide variation between countries (see below for more details).
“These are testing times for many companies globally. While companies need to cope with the short term effects of the financial crisis, long term success requires them to also address the now irreversible realities of global warming, resources scarcity, and demographic change. It’s therefore encouraging to see the majority of large companies globally providing data on how they’re doing this,” said Ernst Ligteringen, Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative.
The survey reveals that 70 percent of the reporting companies worldwide use the universally applicable reporting guidance from the Global Reporting Initiative.
Developed by a global multi-stakeholder network of business, NGOs, academics, labor organizations and others, the GRI Guidelines enable an organization of any size, sector or location to measure and disclose its performance on a range of key sustainability indicators. The GRI G3 Guidelines outline a disclosure framework that organizations can voluntarily, flexibly, and incrementally, adopt.
Report author Wim Bartels, Global Head of KPMG’s Sustainability Services said: “Credible reporting needs to be based on credible standards. We value the increase in reports that are based on the GRI guidelines as this contributes to the comparability and professionalism of Corporate Responsibility reporting.”
Investors, consumers, employees and other stakeholders are increasingly seeking information on how companies are responding to the challenge of sustainability. They want to know how, in a company’s thinking and its actions, it is addressing the critical sustainability issues of the day. Transparent disclosure against internationally recognized guidance provides companies with the opportunity to show how they are taking leadership on these issues.
However, often the greatest sustainability impacts a company has are outside of its main operations and in its supply chain. The KPMG survey reveals that 63 per cent of the G250 now present data on this topic in their reports.
It is a priority for GRI to promote and help implement reporting among the actual companies in the supply chain – it recently launched a Global Action Network for Transparency in the Supply Chain through which larger companies are encouraged to help supplier companies implement the GRI sustainability reporting framework for themselves.
In addition to promoting sustainability reporting throughout corporate supply chains, GRI has recently launched sector specific guidance for the financial services sector and continues to work on tailored sector-specific guidance for other industry sectors that face unique and additional sustainability issues.
As the KPMG survey shows transparency on sustainability performance has come a long way in recent years, but the journey is far from over.