THE A4S SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING INSIGHTS SERIES
Our Sustainability Reporting Insights Series is a collection of briefings to help equip CFOs, corporate reporters, investors and other stakeholders with a better understanding of current approaches to sustainability reporting.
Informed by insights from key stakeholders across the finance community, the series also highlights some of the key actions finance teams can take to respond to future sustainability reporting requirements, focusing on:
- Governance over sustainability reporting
- Sustainability materiality and metrics
- Sustainability data collection
- Sustainability reporting frameworks and standards
Download the briefings:
Organizations are taking action to strengthen governance over sustainability reporting and different models can be used successfully.
This briefing covers:
1. Governance structure and board oversight
2. Functional responsibility and accountability
3. Capacity and knowledge
4. Control framework and management reporting
5. Role of advisors, internal audit and independent external assurance service providers
A4S’s research into sustainability revealed materiality to be the most debated topic when it came to sustainability reporting.
This briefing covers:
1. Approach to defining materiality
2. Stakeholder engagement for the materiality assessment process
3. Internal use of externally reported sustainability metrics
Organizations are addressing a number of challenges in obtaining timely, complete and accurate sustainability data.
This briefing covers:
1. Information quality and control environment
2. Technology and automation
3. Data sources
4. Assurance
There is an urgent need for alignment and harmonization of sustainability reporting frameworks and standards to encourage consistency and comparability in sustainability reporting. Organizations have been taking different approaches to navigate through this ‘alphabet soup’.
This briefing covers:
1. Multiple sustainability frameworks and standards
2. Limited guidance and inconsistency across sustainability frameworks and standards
3. Engagement with advisors and assurance service providers
