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What will integrated reporting actually look like?

Despite constant discussion at nearly every plenary and breakout session during the2013 Global GRI Conference,综合报告 - 将财务和非财务/可持续性报告结合到一份综合报告中 - 似乎陷入了深刻混乱的状态。竞彩足球app怎么下载

Integrated reporting seems to be the Holy Grail of corporate reporting: Both the current president of GRI and the former chairman of its board emphasized its importance and noted that G4 was designed to provide the underlying support for integrated reporting. The overarching message is that we are moving toward a new reporting regime -- yet the practical aspects of when, how, what that will look like remain very nebulous.

例如,一个会议中的小组成员报告说,大约25%的GRI注册报告被自称为“集成”。实际上,这些报告彼此都大不相同:有些是传统的可持续性报告,没有与财务绩效联系,另一些是在可持续性与财务绩效之间建立联系。竞彩足球app怎么下载绝大多数是“单覆盖”报告,其中年度报告和可持续性报告被夹在一个封面下,没有真正的整合,更像是组合或汇编。竞彩足球app怎么下载

Why create an integrated report?

必须首先回答的问题是“集成报告的目的是什么?”从本质上讲,综合报告应是针对金融资本提供商的简洁沟通,并证明了组织在短期和长期内如何创造和维持价值。我们多次听到财务分析师越来越希望能够在分析中考虑公司的可持续性绩效,但他们也面临信息过载。竞彩足球app怎么下载

The many information streams that companies currently provide do not allow analysts to efficiently extract the information they want. Therefore, an integrated report should seamlessly describe a company's most material issues in terms of their likely positive or negative impacts on value creation and financial performance.

就是说,似乎综合报告不会取代可持续性报告,但两者将相互支持。竞彩足球app怎么下载综合报告将为分析师提供简洁的信息,而可持续性报告将是公司进行基础分析的工具,从而提供综合报告。竞彩足球app怎么下载

Shuffling cards photoby Surkov Dimitri on Shutterstock.

Additionally, the sustainability report will continue to be the vehicle through which companies continue to provide more detailed information of concern to other stakeholder groups (content that won't make the cut into an integrated report).

3 key elements of a truly integrated report

It seems clear that any report (financial, sustainability, or integrated) must consider the needs of the target audience and the company's ability to meaningfully meet those needs. For integrated reporting to be meaningful, a number of things must occur.

1.价值创造:公司和投资者必须重塑其对创造价值的看法。像公司价值的80%之类的数据点来自无形资产。然而,从根本上讲,财务报告似乎主要是考虑短期驱动因素。在将价值视为从长期计划和与可持续性相关的计划和绩效中得出的,可持续性和财务报告将保持不一致。竞彩足球app怎么下载

2. Materiality:Companies must understand what their material issues are. Many companies have expressed an interest in a tighter set of guidelines that tells them exactly what to include in an integrated report. But what this might indicate is that companies do not understand what matters. This comes back to the underlying theme of the entire GRI conference, companies must understand their material issues and where they exist in their value chain before they can report on anything. Interestingly, one of the biggest changes from G3.1 to G4 is the emphasis on the materiality assessment process and identified material issues.

3.数据和保证:Companies must have a solid data set and confidence in their reporting systems. Jeanne Ng from China Light & Power stated that her company would not have been ready to provide accurate nonfinancial data for inclusion in its integrated report without the many years of experience it had with sustainability reporting. During the conference, a number of people voiced concern about the uneven quality of third-party sustainability report assurance practices (including comments on the podium by plenary speakers!). How will the movement toward integrated reporting impact the sustainability assurance field? The U.S. already significantly lags other countries in the use of third party assurance.

作为参加会议的北美代表团的一部分,了解该领域的进展(以及持续的困惑)很有趣。目前针对GRI的美国公司的综合报告的吸收充其量似乎很不冷不热。我们与之交谈的许多经验丰富的可持续竞彩足球app怎么下载发展记者说,他们无法想象未来五年,其他人说他们无法想象自己的职业生涯。景观更加复杂the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board(SASB)旨在标准化公司应按部门解决的物质问题和相关指标标准化的计划。

Most interestingly, it became apparent that the concept of integrated reporting is already well entrenched in some large South African companies as a result of国王III公司治理守则。该代码使JSE上市公司的集成报告强制性。

来自领先国家的教训

As a multinational company, ERM was fortunate in that we were able to send practitioners from the U.S., South Africa, Brazil, the U.K., Australia, and the Netherlands. Interestingly, four of these countries are actually leading in the development of integrated reports: South Africa, Australia, the Netherlands and Brazil. More information can be found in "综合报告竞彩足球app怎么下载的可持续性内容 - 先驱调查“ [PDF] GRI资源库中可获得的报告。

Our South African colleague was able to share some of the key challenges observed from the South African experience.

The first is about如何在整个年度报告中有效整合可持续性问题和内容,并克服传统竞彩足球app怎么下载财务报告流程的模式

第二,财务报告的报告开发时间表通常更凝结than that of sustainability reporting. To align the two, companies may need to make significant process changes.

第三,关于保证,整体上没有保证, but elements of it are assured as part of a combined assurance model.

最后,the existing framework for assurance encourages companies to focus on lagging indicators rather than leading indicators, completely overlooking the future element which stakeholders crave. Companies trying to include forward looking statements can run into assurance challenges, as many assurance providers shy away from assuring forward looking statements.

我们的荷兰同事分享了有关荷兰领导地位的以下观点:首先,国家和地方政府对可持续采购的要求对招标者施加了压力,以证明其可持续性证书。竞彩足球app怎么下载

此外,几家荷兰公司是可持续性报告的早期领导者,诸如Heineken,Philips和Akzonobel之类的公司自19竞彩足球app怎么下载90年代以来都报告。由于报告可以成为业务可持续性的驱动力,因此我们可以推测荷兰的公司竞彩足球app怎么下载有更长的时间来开发一种可持续性管理和报告的综合方法。

The final point that both our South African and Dutch colleagues made is that综合报告不会为所有利益相关者讲述整个故事。综合和独立的报告有不同的受众群体,综合报告主要集中在金融资本提供者。结果,我们预计公司将在可预见的未来在单独的报告或网站上继续披露更多详细的可持续性信息。竞彩足球app怎么下载

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