Australian Companies Issuing Sustainability Reports Doubles - Survey
6 November 2008 at 2:48 pm
The number of top Australian companies issuing a sustainability report has doubled in three years according to a global survey by KPMG.
The survey found that the number doubles to 68 out of 100 since the survey was last conducted in 2005.
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) welcomed the KPMG results which find 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 disclose their sustainability performance in “sustainability” or “corporate responsibility” reports.
The KPMG survey 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.
Ernst Ligteringen, the Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative says 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.
He says it’s therefore encouraging to see the majority of large companies globally providing data on how they’re doing this.
The survey reveals that 70 percent of the reporting companies worldwide use the universally applicable reporting guidance from the Global Reporting Initiative.
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.
The KPMG International Survey on Corporate Responsibility Reporting was designed to examine reporting trends among the world’s largest companies. It is the sixth in a series conducted by KPMG and various partners since 1993 and is issued every three years.
Twenty-two of KPMG’s member firms voluntarily participated in this study including: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Analysts searched only publicly available information such as websites, corporate responsibility reports, and financial reports, and collected information on over 50 data points from each company associated with corporate responsibility reporting, standards, process, drivers, and issues.
The sample included the Global Fortune 250, and the 100 largest companies by revenue from 22 countries (except Sweden where the top 70 were examined).
Download the full survey at:
