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The sustainability and reporting trends gained so far are:
Companies will be held accountable, more than ever before; society’s major problems are far from being solved, and companies are seen as powerful institutions that have a decisive role to play in finding solutions.
Business decision makers will take sustainability issues into account more profoundlywhen making decisions related to growth, return on capital, reputation and risk management. Corporate decision makers will consider the company’s proactive contribution to tackling sustainability issues. An important part of a company’s contribution to sustainable development implementation will be demonstrated, for example, through the integration of business strategy with supply chain, regional players, sector peers and through public-private partnerships. This will also be achieved by reinforcing good governance models and improving transparency.
Technology will enable companies and stakeholders to access, collate, check, analyse and correlate data.Consequently, decision makers will take into account the potentially constant scrutiny of the consistency between their ethical values and actions. This will also empower stakeholders, who will most likely play a new role in corporate governance and strategy definition.
Technology will enable companies to operate and report in a highly integrated way,for example, disclosing performance information in context alongside that of their supply chain and regional partners.
Ethical values, reputation and risk management will guide decision makerswhen dealing with issues that are not yet regulated, such as cutting-edge innovations and conflict management.
New indicators will emerge, revealing the correlations between impacts, displaying internal and external business integration, providing valuation of impacts (externalities), and determining the level of trust stakeholders have in a company. Decision makers will be better informed about the specific impacts of business activities when building a sustainable economy.
Reports will result both from regulated and voluntary processes.Sustainability reports and disclosures will support decision makers, inside and outside of companies, as well as helping stakeholders to monitor companies’ contributions to sustainable development and the consistency between their ethical values and actions.
Sustainability data will be digital.This format will prevail for presenting financial and sustainability performance information. Reports and disclosures will be released more frequently than today’s annual communications. The reliability of the data will be essential for building trust with stakeholders.