SmartPlanet did an article on SAP’s sustainability-related acquisitions back in April and in it, AMR Research analyst Steven Stokes was quoted as saying:

But what’s most frightening, Stokes said, is that many companies’ solution for sustainability is powered by a rather unsophisticated tool: Microsoft Excel.

“Just 7 percent of Fortune 1000 companies say they’re reporting [carbon footprint data] and find it easy to do so,” Stokes said.

It appears that with sustainability reporting, as with virtually all other kinds of corporate reporting, we are once again in danger of a new kind of spreadsheet hell. What’s needed is a data standard for sustainability, which is why it is surprising that the newly convened IIRC does not seem to have XBRL on its radar…

Impact statements demonstrate how our work makes a difference in the lives of people, communities, and the environment.  Documenting the results of our efforts is also increasingly expected by funders and stakeholders. Those of us in the public sector identify and illustrate how our work makes a difference in our clientele’s economic, environmental, and social well-being through impact statements and impact reports.

Source: Writing Effective Impact Statements: Who Cares? So What?

Holistic Reporting is not easy – as highlighted by this excellent ACCA/GRI report from December 2009 entitled High Impact Sectors: The Challenge of Reporting on Climate Change. As the report states:

Clearly there is a long road ahead. Corporate disclosures themselves are not dependent upon the existence of a globally enforceable climate change agreement. But corporate strategies will increasingly be tied to a future global climate change policy framework. The research contained in this report suggests that the standard of voluntary corporate climate change disclosure can still be improved – but the wider message is that performance may improve still further if the climate change policy framework governing and signalling to the multinational market place is firmed up considerably.

Transparency leads to better communication and rapport with stakeholders. This increases relevance and credibility by addressing the real issues that stakeholders face. In turn this improves trust with the public and credibility with the government, business and public services demonstrating the added value you bring and the authority with which you speak. Internally it makes it clear to staff what direction the organisation is going as well as building loyalty and a sense of achievement to all.

Source: RNID The Value of Impact Reporting

As Bob Eccles says in his post It’s Time to Standardize Integrated Reporting of Financial and Sustainability Performance one of the challenges of Holistic Reporting is:

Finding a way to understand the relationships between financial and nonfinancial performance (Most companies claim good environmental, social, and governance performance contributes to shareholder value but provide very little data to back up this claim.)