Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reporting

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Socially responsible companies have long tried to implement social and ethical reporting. In 1931, Professor Theodore Kreps introduced business and social welfare as a subject at Stanford University. In it he used the term ‘social audit’ for the first time in relation to corporate reporting. Peter Drucker in The Future of Industrial Man published in 1942 argued that companies have a social dimension as well as an economic purpose. The impact of a corporation’s actions on the environment was brilliantly described in Rachel Carson’s bestseller Silent Spring published in 1962.

 In the 1970s, a number of countries in Europe began promoting environmental and social reporting. By the 1980s, as more reports about the state of environment began to surface, many companies considered it necessary to introduce quality and environmental management systems. 

Driven by the Brundtland Report and related activities, more companies responded in their stakeholder reporting. However, it was not until the formation of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in 1997, that any real structure began to emerge. The GRI set out a series of sustainability reporting guidelines.

CSR reporting has risen sharply over the past 25 years. The 2005 KPMG survey shows that the number of Global Fortune Top 250 (G-250) companies publishing reports had risen to 52%. In 2008, the KPMG Survey found that 80% of the G-250 produced sustainability reports. The Accountability Rating, which rates sustainability reports from the Fortune Global 100 (or G-100, the world's 100 companies with the highest gross revenues), finds significant growth in sustainability reporting.

Reporting on the triple bottom-line has gained impetus in South Africa since the South African JSE incorporated the King II recommendations into its listings requirements.

For further information on Sustainability Reporting Guidelines published by the Global Reporting Initiative, visit www.globalreporting.org

The growing need for expanded corporate reporting

"There is no doubt that the world we knew before the global economic meltdown will not return. The causes of the meltdown will not disappear, and lurking behind them is another set of even more fundamental issues facing humanity. "
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