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In This Issue
Editor's Note
What Does Integrated Reporting Mean for Sustainability Communications?
With more companies integrating their corporate responsibility and annual financial reports, this week's feature article examines the implications of this trend: What are the standards for integrated reports? And how can companies meet the information needs of a wider variety of stakeholders through more streamlined communications?
A new report out of the U.K. looks at a related topic: how climate-related issues are now driving reporting and assurance in annual financial reports.
Lastly, we hear from Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs on the role of business in finding sustainable water solutions. BSR's Environmental Research & Innovation Manager Linda Hwang, who attended the conference where Sachs spoke, offers her thoughts on the water crisis in today's blog.
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In Depth
Integrating Financial and Corporate Responsibility Reporting
By Dunstan Allison Hope, Managing Director, Advisory Services, BSR
As the 2010 reporting season kicks off, what are the implications of the growing number of companies integrating corporate responsibility and annual reports?
Read more →
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Toolbox
Integrating Environmental Performance into Annual Financial Reporting
According to the new report "Turning Questions into Answers: Environmental Issues and Annual Financial Reporting," by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Environment Agency, climate-related issues are now driving reporting and assurance in annual financial statements. The report explores this subject in three main sections:
- Reporting requirements: Learn about the principal legal requirements related to environmental performance, non-mandatory recommendations for environmental disclosure, and tips for including or disclosing environmental impacts in financial statements.
- Implications for companies and report users: Find out how to identify environmental issues that may have a significant impact on your company’s performance, reputation, and relationships, and learn how to address risks of non-compliance with regulations.
- Guidance for auditors: Understand how an auditor decides whether environmental issues are significant to financial statements.
On the Record
Business Leadership Needed for Sustainable Water Solutions
Speaking last week at a conference on worldwide industrial and urban challenges for sustainable water management, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, emphasized the need for business to work with scientists and civil society to find solutions for the world's global water challenges.
"Our best hope [for finding sustainable water solutions] is in company leadership. … We need the companies—not in Washington, for the moment—to work with scientists and leading civil society organizations to forge the kind of solutions and understanding of what can be done. Together, they can create a systems-based, operational-based, and managerial-based approach that then can be taken to politicians."
—Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University (November 4, 2009)
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