Sustainability reporting for just image building?
It’s quite sometime that companies have started printing corporate responsibility and sustainability reports. While this trend has also got some supporters in the developing world but many are still not coming up to the standards. The procedures used for environmental reporting, among other things, are quite dubious according to the experts.
Many also opine that these reports are a mere eyewash and a source of image building and an easy way of boosting PR. Another very important aspect, which is often overlooked at least in developing countries, is the transparency factor. Do the researchers dissect the environmental and social claims put forward in these reports? A recent research study found that 80% of the Fortune 50 report environmental sustainability information online, mostly in dedicated sub-domains.
The study also found that accountability is way lower in these reports as no third-party verification has been used nor the readers can access the actual data sets. Some other very startling facts have been revealed in the study.
Openness of Reporting
Most environmental reporting was found through a menu bar or About Us section, for a total of two clicks
required to find the information.
- 34% of sites explained all of the difficult terms in their environmental sustainability reporting.
- 33% of sites only explained some of the difficulty terms in their environmental sustainability reporting.
- The average Flesch Reading Ease readability score was 36 (“difficult”).
- Reading Ease Scores ranged from 18 (“very difficult”) to 67 (“standard”).
- Those with the easiest scores were often the lightest in significant content, especially with regards to
performance measures.
- While the Internet and use of database software could allow for real time data reporting, none of the Websites were that sophisticated yet. The most recent reports (8) were identified as 2007. The rest were listed as 2006 reports (30).
- Two sites did not include any dates in their reporting.
You can read the full report here.
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