There is progress, but not from where it was expected. is not the International Committee, is an emerging country.
GRI with the Accounting for Sustainability Project , launched in early 2010 an International Committee of the Integrated Report in order to
" create a globally accepted accounting scheme sustainability: a scheme which couples the financial, social and environmental governance in a format clear, consistent, comparable, in short, a format "integrated." The intention is to support the development of information more understandable and more comprehensive information about the organization's overall performance, prospectively and retroactively, to meet the needs of the emerging global economic model more sustainable. "
This committee has been formed with 35 members (none of speaking!), Representing institutions of accountants, financial institutions, international organizations on sustainability, consultants and companies. Early of 2011 had not yet defined a work program.
But they have expected. have already gone out first published guidelines for integrated reporting, in a country that normally do not assume advanced in these areas: South Africa. Even though they had shown leadership when in 2004 launched the first index of sustainability in a developing country, to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
In January 2011, Integrated Reporting Committee (IIC) the country issued a discussion paper and consultation on guidelines for the preparation of reports. These guidelines apply to the 457 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
CII For the composite report should be a look into the future, not a historical record.
"The central objective of the composite report is to allow stakeholders to determine the ability of the institution to create and sustain value (emphasis added) in the short, medium and long term. Users should be able to determine ... ... ... .. if you have identified the social, environmental, economic and financial key and have been incorporated into the strategy ... .... The composite report is not simply an amalgam of the financial statements and the sustainability report .... integrating and connecting relevant information about the strategy, risks and opportunities (emphasis added), and relating with social, environmental, economic and financial "
According to this view, the composite report is a prospective, blames the company to identify and report on strategy, risks and opportunities. This represents a fundamental change in terms of what is disseminated to the public. It is a radical change provide historical information, objective (although assumptions in accounting information) to provide information of opinion, future plans, strategies, risks and opportunities. would have a significant effect on corporate governance .
recognizes that achieving this may be a long process and establish it as a way to go, stressing that the report is only one result, that the process of reaching it is very important [1] .
For them, the composite report will be the primary report of the company but are not intended to substitute for the annual financial reports or sustainability reports, you can continue to prepare for particular audiences. As such there is an extract or a combination of these two reports.
The report shall include:
· Description of scope and limits of the report;
· Overview of the organization, business model which now creates value and its governance structure;
· Risks and opportunities in social, environmental, economic and financial
· Strategic objectives and their relationship to the risks, opportunities and sustainability;
· results of the strategy, indicators based on the above matters;
· Expectations when future results;
· remuneration schemes for directors and top executives, and
· ; Evaluation of how the management team sees the future of the company, how they can improve the positive impacts and minimize negative.
The proposal lists a number of principles under which they must prepare the report are fairly standard (materiality, inclusion, relevancy, accuracy, neutrality, consistency and comparability, timeliness, verifiability, etc. ..).
The report shall be subject to external audit (assurance ) in addition to internal and external audits of financial information. This will also be a long process and that although there are some principles and methodologies, the proposal is sufficiently different from traditional that require adaptation and production of specific methodologies.
this proposal may change significantly upon receipt of comments from the companies. is also possible that the proposal does not address the proposed end of the International Committee but is in line with what some experts have proposed [2] .
Personally I think this proposal is too good to be true . Too good to be true ... ... ... .. in the short term. Much of the information requested is usually considered highly confidential to the company, reveal valuable information for the competition and could lead to instability in the stock prices. The internal resistance in the company to disclose such information will be very high. But sooner or later we must come to this.
will be a matter of seeing how we do trade-offs between transparency and confidentiality.
Either way is an interesting proposal, indicating the address information will be reported to relevant audiences. I hope we move in that direction.
[1] My book, forthcoming (May 2011), contains a more extensive analysis of the evolution and future subreports. View Article III.8 Stages sustainability report: Towards subreport in critical view of Latin America Social Responsibility , Cumpetere, 2011 ( available from May www.cumpetere.com ).
[2] See my book review of Robert G. Eccles and Michael P. One Krzus Report: Integrated Reporting for a Sustainable Strategy, Wiley, 2010, published in Issue 6 (September-December 2010) of the CSR Magazine Fundación Luis Vives.
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