Potential Problems:One
difficulty facing organizations when considering CSR and sustainability
reporting is the plethora of competing reporting standards
organizations, NGOs and quasi-government organizations, each advocating
for compliance with their frameworks, standards or formats for content
of reporting. This places pressure on organizations to determine which
standards or formats they will use.
For example, Directors
should have confidence that any CO2 reduction targets and actual
results reported in sustainability reports, such as a GRI (Global
Reporting Initiative) compliant report, are the same data that are
provided in a Carbon Disclosure Project response.
The issue for
many organizations is that GRI-type CSR and sustainability reports are
produced by or through the marketing function, while Carbon Disclosure
Project reports are produced through the operations arm of the
organization. Too frequently the information provided in different
reports has been sourced from different parts of the organization and
is inconsistent when presented to external audiences.
In almost
all cases, in addition to the risk of ‘multiple messages’, these are
the same risks that exist in reporting of financial data: accuracy,
reliability, completeness, timeliness of information being reported.
Major issues for directors include simply knowing:
- To whom,
- Who is requesting the information,
- Who is providing the information, and
- The level of assurance that has been gained over the information being provided.
Finally,
Directors must have the confidence that the messages that are being
given to the wider market are reflected in the actions of the
organization – ‘walking the talk’. This includes having confidence
that the results that are being reported can be trusted, and that they
represent information sourced from common and trusted systems or
processes.