The UN’s support for corporate sustainability reporting is expected to take a step up at the Rio+20 summit this week when global leaders negotiate the inclusion of reporting requirements in the summit’s final text.
But is this the right topic for this forum?
Sustainability reporting is no longer a fringe activity. In 2011 over 5000 companies produced a separate sustainability report and the numbers are accelerating. And Rio+20 is not the UN’s only approach to supporting sustainability reporting. Its Global Compact, a voluntary set of sustainability principles, has attracted over 6000 signatory companies that agree to report their performance. Below the global level, countries such as France and India, already require at least some sustainability reporting while the EU is expected to mandate it by 2014. In addition, we shouldn’t forget the developing list of stock exchanges demanding sustainability information from their participants.
With all these structures it would be easy to paint a picture of put-upon industry being coerced into onerous disclosure. However, in our recent research on the future of sustainability reporting, Corporate Citizenship found that reporting managers are increasingly realizing that sustainability reporting is a powerful tool for change management and unlocking value from continuous improvement processes.
Meanwhile in Rio, the reporting debate is stoking unhelpful rifts and distracting governments from agreeing high-level protocols and commitments on pressing policy areas such as poverty, water and energy. Without these, not only will we all be worse off, but global business will also miss out on vital shared context. This could unintentionally undermine the proliferation in sustainability reporting that the UN is seeking to promote