3: Integrated Reporting
Make disclosure of sustainability impacts a mainstream business activity. Other Information:
Integrated reporting is a high profile development, offering comparability, consistency and clarity. What GRI thinks about
IR -- GRI believes that the successful company of tomorrow will have an integrated strategy to achieve financial results and
create lasting value for itself, its stakeholders and society. A focus on a single bottom line cannot offer sufficient assurance
that a company will survive, or help it to innovate for future improvements and success. To negotiate the risks of economic
crises and sustainability challenges, and to take opportunities for value creation and long term growth, companies need a
better understanding of their non-financial performance; better ways of disclosing it; and better ways of factoring it into
their strategy and operations. Integrated reporting can show the connectivity between financial and non-financial information
and reflects ‘integrated thinking’. According to the International Integrated Reporting Council, this means the application
of the collective mind of those charged with governance, and the ability of management to monitor, manage and communicate
the full complexity of the value creation process, and how this contributes to success over time. GRI works towards making
disclosure of sustainability impacts a mainstream business activity. There are different paths to mainstreaming, and many
uses for sustainability reporting: as a standalone discipline; as part of a company’s research and development; as a platform
for providing data to specific stakeholder groups, like investors; and now, as an intrinsic element of integrated reporting.
Integrated reporting is a form of corporate reporting that brings together material information about an organization’s strategy,
governance, performance and prospects in a way that reflects the commercial, political, social and environmental context within
which it operates. It provides a clear and concise representation of how an organization creates value, now and in the future.
Integrated reporting already has a considerable profile, and will have a big impact. Through integrated reporting, it is expected
that many more companies and their stakeholders will become aware of sustainability performance measurement and disclosure
and start acting on this information. GRI supports the development of integrated reporting as it has the potential to make
a large contribution to the mainstreaming disclosure of sustainability impacts. Several significant developments have already
taken place with regards to integrated reporting. In 2010, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange made a listing requirement that
companies must produce an integrated report or explain why not. In the same year the International Integrated Reporting Council
(IIRC) was established. In September 2011 the IIRC published its discussion paper Towards Integrated Reporting - Communicating
Value in the 21st Century, which offers initial proposals for the development of an International Integrated Reporting Framework
and outlines the next steps towards its creation and adoption.
Objective(s):
|
