More and more companies are touting their contribution to sustainable development via Corporate Social Responsibility actions, their environmental commitment and their social awareness. Nevertheless, civil society is hardly satisfied with lip service, now demanding proofs of their engagement, beyond the mere listing of a series of vague actions. As the matter is serious, invoking responsibility entails accountability. This is where reporting has a significant role to play.
A growing number of companies, professional organizations and experts (Confederation of Indian Industry, TERI, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs) are considering reporting an essential way to ensure that companies are engaging in sustainable development and that their action has a real impact. Voluntary commitment is slowly moving toward mandatory requirement applying first to listed companies (SEBI decision in November 2011) and maybe soon to others.
Sustainability reporting is not easy, given that it serves to assess the outcome of actions on variables that are not easily measurable. Too go beyond mere ‘green-washing’, this kind of reporting must take the various stakeholders’ seriously, by being sincere and accurate when presenting the outcome of actions. Citizens, shareholders and others can surely be trusted to judge actions whose main goal is to make the world they live in better.
What do you think? Would you be interested in receiving detailed information about what companies are doing to care for a better world? Would that impact your consumer behavior?
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