Better Corporate Reporting outlines the latest frameworks for enhancing non-financial and sustainability reporting. It shows you how to integrate non-financial data into your reporting and overall strategy, creating long-term value, trust and transparency. It includes guides to: the International Integrated Reporting Council's new framework; the Global Reporting Initiative's G4 framework; and a detailed look at the concept at the heart of both of these new frameworks, materiality. It is the compilation of 3 bestselling sustainability guides on sustainability reporting.Understanding Integrated Reporting provides a practical and expert distillation of the new IR framework released by the International Integrated Reporting Council in December 2013. It explains what IR is and how to do it; how it links with other reporting frameworks and what it means in terms of thinking and processes. You'll also get a clear business case for IR and insights and best practice examples from leading integrated reporters.

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 Sustainability Reporting Framework was launched in May 2013. In Understanding G4, corporate reporting veteran Elaine Cohen presents an easy-to-follow review of everything any organization needs to know to decide whether to use the G4 Framework and if so, how.

Materiality is the lynch-pin that can align your sustainability initiatives with your overall strategy. Making Sustainability Matter shows you how to identify your organization's most material sustainability issues, allocate resources to sustainability initiatives for optimal returns; connect your communications and reporting to materiality, and; clarify which issues are important to your stakeholders. Materiality is a core concept in both the GRI's new G4 framework the IIRC's new Integrated Reporting framework.


Making Sustainability Matter

by Dwayne Baraka

Published 1 January 2014

Materiality is the lynch-pin that can align your sustainability initiatives with your organizational strategy – and form the basis of communications and reports that generate trust and transparency. What's more, most companies could be significantly more profitable by engaging with their most material sustainability issues.

Making Sustainability Matter, by business strategy expert Dwayne Baraka, draws lessons from the author's work with a wide range of organizations, including several of the FTSE 100, financial services, housing associations and technology companies.

It will show you how to: identify your organization's most material sustainability issues, and use a well thought out materiality process to integrate sustainability into your organization; allocate resources to sustainability initiatives for optimal returns – and avoid wasting resources on programmes that are not strategically aligned to your business; connect your communications to materiality, and; clarify which issues are important to your stakeholders.

Case studies from SAP and Marks and Spencer are included along with appendices on common material sustainability issues, sustainability issues record and further resources.


Understanding G4

by Elaine Cohen

Published 1 January 2013
Should you or your clients report using the new G4 sustainability reporting framework? What's the significance of the changes and how do they affect you? What is the right reporting level for your company? What should you do next...?Sustainability reporting is here to stay and expanding its influence. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 Sustainability Reporting Framework was launched in May 2013, with the publication of two manuals, adding up to 300 pages of technical guidance. Since then thousands of reporters have been hoping for a short and definitive guide to this new reporting paradigm. This is it!In this expert guide to G4, Elaine Cohen presents an easy-to-follow review of everything any company needs to know in order to decide whether to use the G4 Framework and if so, how. If you want to know what G4 means for corporate reporters, whether they are first-timers, SMEs, experienced global companies or existing GRI reporters at any level, this book is for you. It will give you the answers you need to make decisions, in a user-friendly format, and help you deliver greater value to your own company or your client companies.This book will also help users of reports know what to expect from the new generation of G4 Sustainability Reports and reporting consultants, as they advise clients on reporting process, content and disclosure.

Integrated Reporting is the big new development in corporate reporting that everyone is talking about. Why? Quite simply, Integrated Reporting marks a paradigm shift in the way companies and other organizations think about business models and the creation of value. Integrated Reporting promotes long term thinking about value-creation and stewardship across a broad base of interdependent capitals - financial, manufactured, human, intellectual, natural, and social and relationship.With updated references and case studies to take account of the latest developments in Integrated Reporting, this book provides a practical and expert distillation of for IR professionals.Internationally renowned sustainability reporting expert and accountant Dr Carol Adams explains in simple terms what is and how to do it; how it links with other reporting frameworks and what it means in terms of thinking and processes. You'll also get a clear business case for IR and insights and best practice examples from leading integrated reporters. Integrated Reporting is not just for companies.This book demonstrates how integrated thinking and IR can benefit many other organizations whose success and influence depends on relationships and partnerships.

Sustainability reporting can help companies make more money. Sustainability Reporting for SMEs shows you how. Reporting, done well, requires a company to make public a set of promises that bind the company to its sustainability commitments. By adopting a transparent approach to both business practice and reporting, SMES can gain significant business advantage, both in terms of more effective internal processes and in terms of reputation and business-building.Elaine Cohen provides guidance and tools for actual actions that will improve the sustainability impacts of your company, and a process for reporting that adds value which is much greater than the printed or online report itself. This book will help SMEs develop "the transparency habit" so that they both make more money and contribute more proactively to the sustainability of our society and planet.It is vital reading for SME owners and managers, entrepreneurs, business and sustainability students and teachers, and consultants. Sustainability managers in larger organisations will find this book helpful in assisting their organisations manage their supply chains which undoubtedly include several SMEs.

Sustainability for SMEs offers a comprehensive introduction to the key business cases and techniques for putting sustainability at the heart of your business strategy.Small businesses make a significant collective impact on the environment and society - but only a tiny percentage of SMEs complete a sustainability report. Sustainability Reporting for SMEs will enable any SME to get up to speed on sustainability reporting and plot a course of action for their business. Elaine Cohen distils the latest and best thinking on sustainability reporting for SMEs, and offers a process for reporting that will deliver significant business advantage, both in terms of more effective internal processes and in terms of reputation, customer loyalty and business-building.In many SMEs sustainability is one person's passion and responsibility. A large part of their job becomes selling sustainability to other people in the business. Strategic Sustainability offers arguments, information and tactics that will help that person get the buy-in they need to move sustainability forward in their business. Sustainability is of strategic importance to a business. This book makes an airtight case for why action is essential and how sustainability can help a business not only survive but thrive in competitive marketplaces.The major environmental impact of most businesses derives from energy usage. There are many ways to make your organisation's energy usage more sustainable. In Sustainable Energy Options for Business, Philip Wolfe outlines the best available options for (1) reducing energy use and (2) improving the sustainability of energy supply. After an introduction to regulatory drivers and management issues, Wolfe looks at energy opportunities in five key areas.

The major environmental impact of most businesses derives from energy usage. The upside of this is that using energy more responsibly improves profitability. A business’s cheapest unit of energy is also the one which is least damaging to the planet: the unit you don't use.There are many ways to make your organization's energy usage more sustainable. In Sustainable Energy Options for Business, Philip Wolfe outlines the best available options for (1) reducing energy use and (2) improving the sustainability of energy supply. After an introduction to regulatory drivers and management issues, Wolfe looks at energy opportunities in five key areas: 1. Saving on energy usage; 2. Finding more sustainable sources of energy; 3. Generating renewable electricity; 4. Producing renewable heat; 5. Indirect energy sustainability options.Also included: An "energy checklist" to help identify your best options and important quick wins, plus a handy reference list, signposted from annotations in the text.

Strategic Sustainability

by Alexandra McKay

Published 1 January 2013

In many businesses sustainability is one person’s passion and responsibility. A large part of their job becomes selling sustainability to other people in the business.This book offers arguments, information and tactics will help that person get the buy-in they need to move sustainability forward in their business.Strategic Sustainability: sets out why sustainability matters to businesses – the benefits to you and your stakeholders; shows how to identify the biggest issues, impacts and wins for your business; helps you identify the resources you will need to put sustainability at the heart of your business; outlines key reasons why businesses that are not multinationals should take action on sustainability, and how to do it; looks in detail at how to integrate sustainability with business strategy and mission.Sustainability is of strategic importance to a business. This book makes an airtight case for why action is essential and how sustainability can help a business not only survive but thrive in competitive marketplaces.