1.2.1.0 Introductie

Sustainability reporting has been growing since 2011 until 2018. This growth was particularly sharp from 2011, when only around 20% of companies in the S&P 500 Index published reports, to 2015, when 81% of companies in the S&P 500 Index was reporting. From 2015 to 2018, the percentage of reporting companies rose from 81% to 86% (Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. (G&A), 2018).1 Below, figure 1 shows the growth of sustainability reporting in the S&P 500 Index companies, from 2011 until 2018 (source: Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. (G&A), 2018).2 The growth of sustainability reporting has also been shown by KPMG’s research. In 2015 KPMG has reported that the rate of reporting on corporate responsibility among the largest 100 companies (N100) was 71% and among the G250 was of 92%.3 In 2017, according to KPMG, 75% of the N100 companies report on corporate responsibility and 93% of the G250 companies report on corporate responsibility.4 Many drivers have contributed to increasing awareness of the importance of including ESG risk management in corporate strategy, of engagement with relevant stakeholders, such as employees, shareholders, investors and society at large and reporting material ESG information to relevant stakeholders. These are further explained below in chapters 3 and 4.

Figure 1 – growth of sustainability reporting of companies in the S&P 500 Index, according to the research of the Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. (G&A), 2018).5

Source: Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. (G&A), 2018).6

Outside of the European Union, non-financial disclosure is dominantly voluntary, with a few exceptions such as, South Africa. Most developments are taking place in Brazil, Canada, Japan and United States. In this thesis I discuss sustainability reporting in four countries, Brazil, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States (US) (see below in section 3).78

Today we are increasingly confronted with new initiatives to boost sustainability reporting around the globe. These initiatives come from both public and private sectors, from the corporate and financial sectors and also NGOs and specialized organizations on sustainability and integrated reporting. Most of the voluntary frameworks were developed to respond to a specific problem, as the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) for the financial sector and the Carbon Principles, the CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to face climate change. Although the existent frameworks do not exclude each other, and do not contradict each other, they may require the same information. To overcome this double information requests, these organizations are increasingly developing agreements, such as the GRI and CDP Memorandum of Understanding signed on the 24th of May of 2013. The use of more than one of these frameworks can generate ineffective reporting and double work. Below, I briefly introduce some of the most used sustainability reporting tools.