The Prominence of Natural Capital Within the Integrated Reports of South African Banks

The impact of Banks on natural capital is significant. The integrated reporting framework (IR Framework) prescribes that integrated reports should include specific ‘content elements’ (sections). The purpose of this study is to examine the disclosures of natural capital from a South African banking perspective in integrated reports. Within the global context of climate change and biodiversity collapse, the research aims to determine to what extent natural capital is afforded prominence on the whole and within each of the prescribed content elements. A qualitative approach was followed in order to examine the contents of integrated reports. Purposive sampling was used to select a sample of the five largest banks from the total population of all South African banks. The study found that the prominence afforded to natural capital varied widely across the sample. Whilst the content elements of ‘Performance’; ‘Strategy and resource allocation’; ‘Risk and opportunities’ and ‘Organisational overview and external environment’ enjoy the bulk of focus in terms of natural capital prominence, there is limited mention of natural capital in the ‘Business model’; ‘Outlook’ and ‘Basis of preparation’ content elements. It is concluded that there is a wide range of interpretation of the IR framework with regards to the requirements for reporting on natural capital. It is recommended that future iterations of the framework should take steps towards closing this interpretation gap and that prepares should endeavour to make further disclosures with regards to natural capital in the ‘outlook’ sections of their integrated reports.