GPPi publishes study on trends in non-financial reporting

During the past decade, reporting on non-financial indicators (“sustainability reporting”) has seen tremendous growth, greatly supported by programs such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). However, thus far, the market for sustainability reporting is far from fully leveraged. While a number of companies, especially large firms, have adopted environmental and social reporting, it still very much remains a minority practice. To address these issues, GPPi has published a study entitled ​“Trends in non-financial reporting,” part of a larger review of the GRI.

Commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), GPPi was asked to conduct a review of the GRI and to advance practical recommendations that could help shape the future development of this initiative in productive ways. The GRI, which promotes a set of non-financial reporting (NFR) guidelines for reporting economic, environmental, and social performance, was developed in order to promote sustainability reporting in a routine and comparable manner among businesses and other stakeholders. The GRI attempts to accomplish this vision by developing, continually improving, and building capacity around the use of this Sustainability Reporting Framework and to provide leadership in order to make sustainabilty reporting a mainstream issue in the coming years.

The aim of the ​“Trends in non-financial reporting” study is to analyze the past development of sustainability reporting trends as well as motivations for reporting on non-financial matters, namely information on corporate impact on environmental, social and economic indicators. In addition, the report analyzes motivations among stakeholders about expected growth in reporting that emerged from a number of interviews and a survey, and contrasts these findings with a thorough examination of drivers and levers behind sustainability reporting.

Based on this analysis, the report offers three possible scenarios for the future development of NFR: exponential growth, stagnation or linear growth. The report concludes that, under current conditions, the number of companies and other stakeholders that produce sustainability reports will is likely to grow in a linear fashion. This growth model predicts a doubling of sustainability reporters within 15 years, however, this will encompass only a relatively small (roughly 11 percent or 4100 TNCs out of an estimated 77,000) and suggests that sustainability reporting will remain a niche practice for some time to come.