Why should your organization Report on Sustainability?
The sustainability report includes performance data on companys’ social and environmental impacts and how it is managing these impacts and issues. The sustainability report functions as a medium of communication engaging employees, customers, investors, government bodies, and other stakeholders. It also serves as an operational document that informs the board of directors or decision-making bodies about how the company is performing on the Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) matters and thus decisions improving performance can also be undertaken by the decision makers. In role of sustainability report consultant we have assisted several companies in improving their ESG performance.
The environmental and social impacts that are disclosed in the report are selected based on the company’s operations, supply chain, stakeholder expectations, and the guidance that is followed to develop a sustainability report. As a sustainability report consultant, we’ve developed sustainability reports for several clients in the Middle East and India region. The sustainability report also presents the sustainability strategy that we set. The report also discloses through data, statistics and verifiable metrics and how the organization is working towards attaining the sustainability target it set for itself.
There is no specific rule on what should be shape or the size of the sustainability report, It could be a simple document, soft copy, printed report or an interactive website or a short summary report. It depicts the most material or critical social and environmental issues that the company has and what the company is doing in order to enhance the positive and negative impact. Most companies use Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards as a guideline to develop their sustainability report. The GRI standard covers the governance, stakeholder ethics, economic, environmental, and the social aspect of the organization. A successful organization or a business must manage both the positive and negative impacts of doing business. In capacity of sustainability report consultant we have developed several sustainability reports in line with GRI standards requirements.
The impacts related to environmental and social matters is often overlooking by companies because their main or primary target is to generate revenue. However responsible organisations are also looking into the impact it is having on environmental and social parameters. They intend to increase their positive impact and reduce the negative impact of their operation. This improves business performance and several optimization opportunities as presented such as energy optimization, water use reduction, employee motivation, etc.
Further, the company presents itself as a sustainable organization that is committed to environmental and social benefits and therefore its brand value increases. Several customers are nowadays preferring to go with sustainable and green brands and therefore the market share of such companies also is expected to increase. Therefore as a sustainability report consultant we believe that companies must come forward and disclose their sustainability performance whether the regulative requirements.
