Risk & Opportunity

Best Practice in Non-Financial Reporting

01 Nov 2004 – Publication

• The financial sector – including insurers, reinsurers, lenders, investors and analysts – is beginning to wake up to a range of non-financial issues. Even the best current non-financial reporting by companies may not yet meet their needs, but the convergence of the financial and non-financial worlds is now under way.

• This is a key conclusion of Risk & Opportunity SustainAbility’s sixth benchmark survey of corporate non-financial reporting with UNEP – and our first in partnership with Standard & Poor’s.

• The good news is that this latest survey finds that some companies have made massive progress in responding to demands for improved transparency on key issues of corporate responsibility.

• Underscoring the trend, the Top 50 rankings are rocked by a massive influx of new entrants. The bad news is that most companies still fail to identify material strategic and financial risks and opportunities associated with the economic, social and environmental impacts captured by the ‘triple bottom line’ agenda.

• Risk & Opportunity considers the question: Is the glass of non-financial reporting (and wider sustainability reporting) currently half full, as enthusiasts might argue, or half empty, as some critics allege? The evidence suggests an increasingly positive assessment, though there are still major gaps to be closed in the linked fields of disclosure, reporting and communication.

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