Sustainability Reporting Services
In an era of great transparency, hyper connectivity and pursue of purpose, there is stakeholders’ ever-rising demand for more and better communication regarding the sustainability practices, initiatives and performance of companies and organizations. A reader friendly sustainability report that meets rigorous recognised standards and conveys the right message about an organization to its shareholders, is the one that achieves its purpose. There is a wide spectrum of globally recognized sustainability frameworks developed to aid organizations in improving and disclosing their sustainability performance. The most widely used are GRI Standards, UN Global Compact, CDP, ISO26000, IIRC and UN SDGs.
Sustainability Reporting
A sustainability report is a valuable business tool that allows companies and organizations to present their economic, environmental and social impacts, while providing links of how their values and governance model dictate and influence strategy decisions, business performance and sustainability commitments. A good sustainability report is based on a sound sustainability strategy integrated with core business objectives and it demonstrates how companies create value for both the business and society.
Sustainability Knowledge Group is here to help you write and share your story, so you do not have to reinvent the wheel. If you are a first-time reporter, we will assist you in turning your sustainability journey into a learning process by working with you to develop your first Sustainability report, supporting you with future reports and coaching your employees how to disclose your progress and performance in an engaging way. For more advanced reporters we provide GRI Content Index, Alignment, Review and SDGs mapping services to improve the quality and validity of your sustainability reports.
We will guide you through the following areas:
- Materiality Assessment: identification of the most crucial material topics for your business
- Compliance with reporting frameworks: selection of the most appropriate reporting frameworks, including: GRI, UN Global Compact, CDP, ISO26000, IIRC and UN SDGs
- Data collection: collection of the necessary data for the report
- Sustainability report content development: writing a well-composed report and communicating it effectively
Materiality Assessment
Materiality Assessment is the first and most significant step towards producing a Sustainability report and is the important link for building a coherent and successful sustainability strategy. Sustainability Knowledge Group will work with you to identify the economic, environmental and social areas that can create opportunities or pose risks to your organization.
According to GRI, material topics are those that have “direct or indirect impact on an organization’s ability to create, preserve or erode economic, environmental and social value for itself, its stakeholders and society at large”. Material topics form the central part of your report and are of great importance to your stakeholders.
Our role is to help you identify those key topics that create and retain value to your business, and the issues that need your attention, monitoring and action.
GRI Content Index, SDGs mapping Alignment and Review services
GRI Standards and the SDGs have become an indispensable lens through which organizations assess and share their sustainability journey. Through advanced services including GRI Content Index, Alignment, Review and SDGs mapping, Sustainability Knowledge Group provides a much-needed array of services guaranteed to improve the quality of your sustainability reports and verify its compliance with leading standards and frameworks. These services support reporting organizations to ensure that their reports are in line with the requirements of the GRI Standards and provide in depth feedback to help you improve.
External Assurance
With mounting pressure from stakeholders for transparency, and the rise in global regulations on Sustainability reporting, accuracy and external assurance have become essential for sustainability reporting. External Assurance increases confidence and trust in the quality of the sustainability content, data and processes portrayed in a report, thus making your report legitimate, reliable and credible to be relied on and used by your stakeholders for decision making.
According to the latest aggregated data by GRI, in 2017, an estimated 20% of reports listed on GRI’s Sustainability Disclosure Database indicated some form of external assurance.
The benefits of external assurance include:
- Increased recognition, trust and credibility
- Reduced business risk and increased value
- Improved board and CEO level engagement and decision making
- Strengthened internal reporting and management systems
- Improved stakeholder communication and relationships
Sustainability Knowledge Group:
- Is an AA1000 Licensed Assurance Provider
- Has verified competences in reporting and assurance practices
- Applies quality control procedures to the assurance engagement
- Applies a systematic, documented, evidence-based, assurance procedure in reaching conclusions
- Assesses whether the report provides a reasonable and balanced presentation of performance and data including the application of the GRI or other framework guidelines
- Issues an independent, objective and impartial conclusion based on international assurance practices
Our clients: