Corporate Reporting and Accountability

This chapter explains that integrated information and communication, which is to say routine data collection and reporting of material financial and non-financial or intangible aspects of corporate performance, is both the starting point and concrete expression of a firm’s practice of stakeholder capitalism. But while there has been great progress over the past decade in the development and implementation of non-financial corporate performance metrics and their inclusion in integrated corporate reports, the field remains underdeveloped and unfit for purpose in certain critical respects, particularly the comparability, completeness, consistency and relevance of such information to providers of capital. The chapter provides a practical guide for individual companies wishing to navigate this complexity and apply best practice in their own mainstream reporting. It also suggests how the business community as a whole could play a stronger leadership role in helping to improve the overall quality and comparability of non-financial reporting and its connection to financial reporting through the creation of an international standard or set of standards for this purpose. A baseline global sustainability reporting standard adopted by national regulators is ultimately what is needed to bring the resource allocation of companies, capital markets and entire economies into better alignment with stakeholder capitalism and sustainable enterprise value creation. The chapter concludes by tracing the recent acceleration of progress in this direction by international accounting authorities and recommends how companies can prepare themselves for the likely introduction of such an international sustainability disclosure standard within the next few years.