Corporate Sustainability: Integrating Performance and Reporting

Citation

Tracy-Anne De Silva (2015), "Corporate Sustainability: Integrating Performance and Reporting", Pacific Accounting Review, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 438-440. https://doi.org/10.1108/PAR-08-2013-0077

Corporate Sustainability: Integrating Performance and Reporting sets out to integrate corporate sustainability performance and reporting, offering “guidance to organisations that focus on sustainability performance and accountability reporting”. Although the book often emphasizes information that is more useful to one reader group, it successfully provides information that is useful to many reader groups, including auditors, business schools and global sustainability professionals.

Brockett and Rezaee have structured the book into three parts. Part 1 (Chapters 1-3) is an introduction to sustainability performance, reporting and assurance. Part 2 (Chapters 4-9) discusses five dimensions of sustainability – economic, governance, social, ethical and environmental – and provides an overview chapter as well as one chapter for each of the dimensions. Part 3 (Chapters 10-11) discusses emerging issues in sustainability performance, reporting and assurance.

The definition of sustainability reporting used – “the ongoing process of identifying, measuring, recognizing, disclosing and auditing” sustainability performance – is broader than a reader might expect. Once the reader is aware of and understands this definition, the ways in which the book intends to, and does, integrate performance and reporting become clear. Throughout the book, the discussion focuses on sustainability reporting and the reporting of sustainability performance. As a result, the guidance that is provided is more focused on how to integrate sustainability performance into reporting, with less emphasis on integrating performance and reporting into the organization (something that might be expected if focusing on the title rather than on the definition of sustainability reporting used).

Although this is true of much of the book, the preface does provide a discussion about how to incorporate key performance indicators (KPIs) into an organization. The book also includes a discussion of the integration of performance and reporting into other aspects of a business (e.g. strategy) and includes useful guidance on how to report (i.e. the process). The authors have provided a thorough discussion on risk management, the role sustainability plays in an organization, the use of sustainability information, the demand for that information and why organizations should provide that information to stakeholders (in particular, shareholders). An extensive discussion of the evolution of sustainability reporting – where it has come from, where it is now and where it is going – is also included. A good overview of what is happening worldwide is provided, and the book makes reference to the Kyoto Protocol, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a range of worldwide examples, including the World Wide Fund, the United Nations and Ceres. The book highlights problems worldwide and the need for organizations to be more sustainable, although with (possibly too much) emphasis on examples from the USA.

The separation of the five dimensions of sustainability into their own chapter in Part 2 improves the readability of the book and the ability for organizations to implement the guidance given by separating it into more manageable components. In the five chapters of Part 2, there is an assumption made by the authors that organizations are already engaged in sustainability performance (to some extent) and need guidance on the reporting of that engagement – something that aligns with the purpose of the book as stated in the preface. However, it is likely that there are more organizations that need help to get engaged in sustainability and, thus, are in need of further guidance on how to perform before they are able to report that performance. Chapter 8, on the ethical dimension of sustainability, has a different focus to the other four chapters in Part 2. In particular, Chapter 8 looks more at what the dimension is about and the benefits of reporting on a dimension. Including more of this focus in the other four chapters on the different dimensions would be beneficial to organizations wanting to either begin or improve their sustainability performance and reporting.

One of the key features of this book is the emphasis on practical guidance. The book achieves this by providing a list of KPIs in Chapters 5-9; an overview of what KPIs are, their benefits and, in Chapter 10, how to implement them, and there are lists of action items in each of the eleven chapters. The action items are very useful to organizations wanting to improve their sustainability reporting and provide valuable guidance as to what could be done. The action items would be even more useful if they referred to relevant sections and pages in the chapter and if they had a greater focus on the how to. More specific and detailed examples of best practice (in addition to the summaries given) would also improve the usefulness of the book to organizations wanting to begin or improve their reporting on sustainability performance.

The book discusses a number of studies and surveys that have been undertaken around the world by various organizations, including the Big 4 accounting firms, and provides useful summaries of the results. For example, there is a summary of a survey on emerging issues that highlights ten emerging challenges and seven reasons why investors should pay attention to sustainability reporting.

There are some detailed discussions on environmental management systems and reporting guidance, although these are dominated by two examples – ISO14001 and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Reference to other environmental management systems and reporting guidance, rather than a focus solely on particular developments, regardless of how widely adopted they are, would provide for a broader and more objective review.

Other key features of the book include a good use of figures to illustrate key points and useful summary tables included in some chapters. Each chapter has the same approach with an executive summary, an introduction, a list of action points and a concluding summary. The executive summaries provide an overview of some of the issues to be covered in the chapter, while the introductions set the context of the chapter. There are also extensive endnotes and references providing future readings and additional resources for interested readers.

Providing cross-references to earlier chapters, sections or pages would enhance the readability and integration of the book. For example, Chapter 11 provides a summary statement for three of the five dimensions of sustainability but does not include reference to the respective chapters. These various cross-references would be especially useful for someone who chooses to read a particular chapter or section of the book, rather than reading the entire book. Furthermore, the book uses a number of abbreviations and acronyms, which are likely to be more familiar to some readers than others, and readability would be improved if a list of abbreviations and acronyms was provided for readers to refer to. A number of spelling mistakes and typographical errors occur throughout the book and these should be addressed in future editions.

Overall, the authors have provided an extensive overview of corporate sustainability and have included practical guidance on a range of issues through the use of KPIs and action items that organizations could implement to improve their reporting of sustainability performance. The authors have successfully provided guidance to a number of reader groups, including organizations and auditors. The book makes a useful contribution to sustainability performance and reporting – an area that needs help to develop if there is to be more meaningful reporting and a broader focus than is commonly reported.