The global social and environmental challenges facing the globe have become so intense and clear for individuals, corporates, households, businesses, and governments. Today, investors are extending their evaluation of the potential stocks to sustainability criteria. They recognize that for their investments to make sense, it is crucial to extend focus beyond profits. For customers, adverts on television are no longer enough. They carry further reviews to identify the most sustainable brand. So, if you have not started sustainability reporting, this is the right time.
If you have a manufacturing organization, it is important to understand the process of ESG sustainability reporting well before getting started. In Particular, you need to appreciate and apply the following principles correctly.
Responsibility
When you decide to adopt sustainability as part of your manufacturing organization’s strategy, it will require some cultural changes. This is why it should be championed by the top leadership of the organization. The main decisions need to come from the top, especially the board of directors and top managers.
The leadership acts as a link with all the sectors of the enterprise. For example, when the board of a manufacturing company takes the decision to change the way different parties communicate, the policy is carried down to all levels. Depending on the nature of the organization, the leadership of the company might want to delegate the task to a specific team for greater efficiency. If the organization is complex or large, an expert might be necessary to help with company review and strategy implementation.
Identifying and Engaging
The first step of ESG reporting tool is identifying stakeholders and their interests. For example, a listed company might be interested in investors in its stocks and customers. Depending on these interests, the company needs to identify the right material topics. Through material analysis, the company is able to identify key challenges and opportunities facing its operations.
One, the risks and opportunities become clear, you are now ready to start. Next, you need to engage the stakeholders to try and identify good practices on sustainability. Innovation at this point is very important to ensure the targeted goals are achieved. For example, you might want to liaise and work with conservation groups that deal with genetic diversity enhancement to make a bigger impact on society.
Accuracy
Recently, some stakeholders have raised concerns about the accuracy of sustainability reports that are released by companies. For investors, the goal is to be able to identify the strategies employed by a company and determine whether they are ample to secure their investments. Therefore, your sustainability reporting efforts should be aimed at giving correct information.
One way of getting accurate data is working with appropriate sustainability reporting software. Top programs, such as Diginex, are designed to make data collection easy and accurate. Instead of waiting until the end of the year to manually select the data to use, the software allows you to promptly isolate the targeted information. You can even rapidly generate quarterly reports to check the progress.
Comparability
As you get started with sustainability reporting, the concept of comparability is also very crucial. This means that once you have created a report, it should be easy to compare with other companies and standards in the sector. To do this, you need to identify an appropriate framework, such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). In addition to comparability, ensure that the report highlights continuity, implying that this year’s efforts should flow easily into what you will do in the subsequent periods.
As you can see,
sustainability reporting
is an important component of modern organization management. So, you should spare no effort to ensure it is done correctly by ensuring you adhere to all the principles, especially the ones we have listed above. Others include timeliness, reliability, and precision.
