11 Facts About Sustainability reporting

Sustainability reporting refers to the disclosure, whether voluntary, solicited, or required, of non-financial performance information to outsiders of the organization.

An increasing number of organizations are providing frameworks for sustainability reporting and are issuing standards or similar initiatives to guide companies in this exercise.

Corporate sustainability reporting has a history going back to environmental reporting.

Obligation of accountability is therefore often assimilated to Sustainability reporting and is addressed, in the first place, to the company's stakeholders.

The practice of sustainability reporting has existed in a scattered way since the 1980s but has really expanded over the last twenty years.

In particular, the adoption of sustainability reporting has been found to have a positive impact on company performance and value.

Topic of sustainability reporting has become a recurring theme in recent years and the practice has been increasingly professionalized.

However, the framework surrounding such reporting is in constant evolution and companies are increasingly challenged by the form, content and process of their sustainability reporting.

When it comes to Sustainability reporting, companies have a certain amount of freedom in the drafting of their statements, given the absence of any binding law on this subject.

Difficulty of adapting traditional Sustainability reporting to the complexity of non-financial information is an additional criticism that can be made of this concept.

Indeed, while financial Sustainability reporting is by nature quantifiable, easy to verify and reliable, non-financial information is struggling to gain legitimacy in the eyes of stakeholders.