Executive Summary
Sustainability reporting is a concept that organizations are finding hard to ignore. Stakeholders in contemporary world are able to legitimize activities and operations of an organization based on how well the organization performs with regard to social, economic, and environment aspects, which constitute sustainable development.
Australia, as a country impacted by global forces, cannot be isolated from this new developments taking place and as a result, the country’s performance of many organizations is going to be benchmarked on sustainability reporting.
What therefore this means is that, Australia needs to adopt and implement the most appropriate global standardized tools for her sustainability reporting needs. This report finds out that adoption of GRI is critical and beneficial for sustainability of Australia organizations.
Introduction
The nature of doing business has been undergoing transformation in the last few decades and today, stakeholders are demanding that organizations should reveal their business activity performances (Perego, 2009).
Contemporary organizations under the influence of stakeholders are finding it necessary to pay attention to sustainability performance of organizations’ activities with regard to economic, social and environment aspects (Kolk, 2006).
This is being reflected in the changing nature of organizations’ strategies, operational activities, and public disclosure, which are becoming necessary and common.
Therefore, sustainability reporting (SR) is becoming a norm among organizations in and outside Australia, and according to Hubbard (2011), SR involves “reporting aspects of organization’s environmental and social as well as economic aspects of an organization’s performance” (p.824).
Sustainability reporting reasons
The first reason has to do with market mechanisms whereby, market drivers have resulted into growth of numerous ethical, social, and environmental investment funds, which in turn have influenced the necessity for sustainability disclosures (Vormedal and Ruud 2009).
Social drivers have also become part of reasons for the growth of sustainability reporting. According to Solomon and Lewis (2002), organizations are becoming more obliged to disclose information regarding their social, environmental, and ethical performance as required by stakeholders (Vormedal and Ruud, 2009).
Legitimacy theory posits that, organizations have to legitimize their behavior and at same time justify their activities, which therefore makes sustainability reporting to be the avenue to obtain ‘social license’ of operation and at same time, establish good reputation for the organization (Ortas and Moneva, 2011).
Political and regulatory drivers are also contributing to the growth of sustainability reporting as great emphasis of political agenda centers on social and corporate responsibility of organizations (Ortas and Moneva 2011). The take on this is that, political policies and legislations may influence the need for organizations to have sound and functional SR practices.
The last reason for growth of SR has to do with emergence of global standard-setting institutions, which in one way or the other are becoming avenues setting standards for organizations to comply with in regard to environmental, social, and economic sustainability reporting (Vormedal and Ruud, 2009). Such organizations include the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
Sustainability reporting features based on the GRI
The first feature of GRI is ingrained in the aspect of globalization with regard to corporate activities (Geraghty, n.d). GRI reflects or constitutes a globally applicable standard that has been developed to suit diverse sustainability reporting needs of different organizations.
GRI has come out as an innovative instrument that has input of business community, civil society, and other stakeholders with interest in sustainability reporting (Ortas and Moneva, 2011). In this purview, GRI in use today is seen to be more accountable in fulfilling economic, social, and environmental reporting needs of organization (Ortas and Moneva, 2011).
The second feature of GRI is that, GRI reflects and influences sustainability activities through dialogue with stakeholders and subsequent communication of the impacts.
GRI has been designed in such a way that, as a global instrument, it possesses the capability to enhance reliability in sustainability reporting and this has led to affected stakeholders to continuously improve their decisions (Geraghty, n.d).
The third feature has to do with GRI having common language for sustainability reporting, which enhances eco-efficiency production systems that also promote sustainable development (Geraghty, n.d). This feature has led to the instrument to become applicable universally in many organizations.
Sustainability reporting implementation based on the GRI
The first step of GRI is to conduct sustainability reporting that has and involves complete inclusion of stakeholders. Inclusion of stakeholders is crucial to ensure that the reliability and viability of SR is not compromised (Ortas and Moneva, 2011).
The next step involves adopting a balanced global process, whereby, GRI advocates for adoption of standardized and global acceptable processes in conducting SR. This has been the area of focus and it can be linked to the growing need of global adoption of sustainable development practices (Ortas and Moneva 2011).
The third process involves adopting and using full and relevant communication technologies. As the world changes and the issues of corporate sustainability reporting become critical, there is need for organizations to utilize sophisticated communication technologies that have been made possible with emergence of information technology (Global Reporting Initiative, 2001).
The next process involves enhancing transparency, whereby, disclosure of information should be evaluated within the precepts of impact it will have, and such information should enable stakeholders to make the right decisions (Global Reporting Initiative, 2001).
On overall, transparency is such important in that processes, procedures, and assumptions used to prepare the disclosures should be known by stakeholders.
The last step involves accuracy, timeliness, and efficiency and reliability reporting of SR. In essence, SR should be made to stakeholders on time, when it is accurate and reliable and in this way, efficient application of such SR is vital to the growth of the organization (Global Reporting Initiative, 2001).
Recommendation
In essence, reporting positive aspects of the organization with regard to sustainability have suffocated and limited attempts, which in turn affect the functionability of sustainable development goals and objectives.
Sustainability reporting, as it appears now, only dwells on the ‘clean sheet’ aspect of the organization as far as reporting of social, environment, and economic activities of the organization are concerned.
The negative aspects rarely come out and as a result, the stakeholders only consume the skewed part of sustainable concept aspect. There should be the establishment of a global mechanism that has ability to capture organization’s positive and negative aspects of sustainability, which in turn should be translated and included in sustainability reporting.
This will provide an opportune moment for stakeholders to have a broad outlook at the performance of the organization and from this, they would be able to formulate and suggest the best ways sustainable development can be achieved.
Reference List
Geraghty, L., N.d. Sustainability reporting-measure to manage, manage to change. Sydney: Focal Point Australia.
Global Reporting Initiative. 2001. Sustainability reporting guidelines. GRI Publishing. Web. Web.
Hubbard, G., 2011. The quality of the sustainability reports of large international companies: An analysis. International Journal of Management, 28(3).
Kolk, A., 2008. Sustainability, accountability, and corporate governance: Exploring multinationals reporting practices. Business Strategy and Environment, 17(1); 1-15.
Ortas, E., & Moneva, J.M., 2011. Original and development of sustainability reporting: Analysis of the Latin America context. Journal of Globalization, Competitiveness and Governability, 5(2); 16-37.
Perego, P., 2009. Causes and consequences of choosing different assurance providers: An international study of sustainability reporting. International Journal of Management, 26(3); 412-425.
Vormedal, I., & Ruud, A., 2009. Sustainability reporting in Norway-An assessment of performance in the context of legal demands and socio-political drivers. Business Strategy and Environment, 18(4); 207-222.