Forming Reports on Sustainable Development: Stages and Procedures

In recent decades, worldwide active development of non-financial reporting is underway, its legislative regulation and standardization are being formed. In Russia, the Concept of the Public Non-Financial Reporting Development was approved by the Government of the Russian Federation. Realization of the tasks set in the Concept requires an active communication between all stakeholders.

By now, in Russia there is a group of the companies-leaders in the field of making reports on sustainable development. However, most Russian companies still need to master the principles, methods and techniques for preparing such reports. This article is primarily addressed to those organizations that are currently in the process of collecting information and understanding the tasks to address in the first place.

The article is based on the result of analyzing the requirements and recommendations of the most widely used standards on sustainable development reporting (GRI — Global Reporting Initiative), integrated reporting (IR — Integrating Reporting), and US standards for sustainable development reporting (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Standards or SASB Standards). Public non-fi reports registered on the website of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) form the empirical basis for the analysis.

The paper proposes a sequence of procedures and actions to prepare a corporate report on sustainable development and provides recommendations for the implementation of each stage. It is recommended to consider the process of preparing such a report as an investment project, to which a standard technique of project management and network planning can be applied. It is shown that investments in the development of a report on sustainable development should bring returns and solve various strategic tasks, such as promotion of the organization brand and reputational risk management through interaction with interested parties. The availability of quality information on sustainable development for interested users is becoming an important factor affecting business decisions, such as choosing supplier in procurement, and can be considered as a potential competitive advantage. This leads to the fact that sustainable development reporting is increasingly becoming a strategic tool for managing the value creation process and implementing corporate communications.

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