Column Actions

This indicator tracks the number of companies publishing sustainability reports in a country.

This indicator is used as an important opportunity not only to monitor and promote the growth in sustainability reporting globally, but also to monitor and promote high-quality reporting, promote the integration of sustainability information into the annual reporting cycle of companies, and promote sustainability practices by companies

Sustainable Development Unit (SDU)

Sustainable Development Unit (SDU)

Annual 

Number of companies publishing sustainability reports

Sustainability Reports: For the purposes of this indicator, ‘sustainability reports’ will not be limited to stand-alone sustainability reports produced by companies, but will be considered as ‘reporting sustainability information’ and expanded to other forms of reporting sustainability information, such as publishing sustainability information as part of the company’s annual reports or reporting sustainability information to the national government. This is to ensure that the focus of the indicator is on tracking the publishing of sustainability information, rather than on the practice of publishing stand-alone sustainability reports. It also ensures that the indicator interpretation is aligned with the wording of Target 12.6 which refers to promoting “the integration of sustainability information into the annual reporting cycle of companies”. Not every report called ‘Sustainability Report’ will be counted towards the indicator. In order to be counted, they will have to comply with a ‘minimum requirement’ in terms of sustainability disclosures reported on.

Company: While many companies report at the group level, many of their impacts will be local, and some subsidiaries or franchises produce separate sustainability reports. As a practice that should be encouraged, and one that is useful to monitor, is therefore proposed to count both the group and subsidiary/franchise level separately, as separate entities. “Company” can, therefore, apply to either the parent company or a franchise or subsidiary, depending on their reporting practices

It is proposed that, to be counted towards the indicator, companies must publish information that meets a “Minimum requirement” of disclosure. A core set of economic, environmental, social and governance disclosures of sustainability information is therefore identified. In defining these disclosure elements, the custodian agencies attempted to align with the disclosures that appear in existing related reporting frameworks, including the IIRC reporting framework, the Global Reporting Initiative Standard (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) (see Annex I for a comparison of the various sustainability disclosures contained under each.

N/A

Companies will be counted towards the indicator if they publish sustainability information covering the following sustainability disclosures: Minimum Requirement:

Institutional and governance: 

• Materiality assessment*
• Sustainability strategy and/or principles related to sustainability
• Management approach to address materiality topics
• Governance structure, including for economic, environmental and social issues
• Key impacts, risks, opportunities • Anti-fraud, anti-corruption and anti-competitive behavior practices

Economic:

•  Direct measure of economic performance (revenue, net profit, value added, payouts to shareholders)
•  Indirect measure of economic performance (community investment, investment in infrastructure or other significant local economic impact)

Environmental:

•  Energy consumption and energy efficiency
• Water consumption, wastewater generation, integrated water resource management practices, or water recycling/re-use and efficiency
• Greenhouse gas emissions
•  Other emissions and effluents, including Ozone-depleting substances, Nitrogen Oxides (NOX), Sulphur Oxides (SOX), and chemicals
• Waste generation, including hazardous wastes
•  Waste minimization and recycling practices • Use and/or production of hazardous chemicals and substances

Social: 

• Occupational health and safety
• Total number of employees, by contract type and gender
•  Employee training
•  Unfair and illegal labour practices and other human rights considerations
•  Diversity, equal opportunity and discrimination in governance bodies and among employees
•  Worker rights and collective agreements

N/A

N/A

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.