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Reporting guidelines
ACCA aims to help businesses and organisations realise the growing importance of sustainability to them. The following are essential sources of guidance on reporting.
AA1000 Series
This series of documents, published by The Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability (or AccountAbility) act as principles based standards designed to help corporations trying to implement systems and processes for improving their sustainability performance and accountability. Within the AA1000 series, there is a stakeholder engagement standard and assurance standard as well as the accountability guidance. See www.accountability.org.uk for more information.
Accountability 5 part materiality test
This test is designed to help companies determine what issues are most material, or relevant, to their business and its stakeholders and should therefore be disclosed or reported. It consists of 5 different elements which should be carried out in a stakeholder inclusive manner, and subjected to external assurance in the usual fashion. The results of the test can then be used to decide what disclosures should be made in a companies sustainability report. The five different materiality tests are: short term financial impacts, policy related performance, business peer based norms, stakeholder behaviour and concerns and societal norms. See www.accountability.org.uk for more information.
GRI Guidelines for Sustainability Reporting
The Global Reporting Initiative in 2002 published a reporting framework which is made up of reporting guidelines, sector supplements and protocols. The guidelines should be used as the basis for corporate reporting. In October 2006, an updated version of this framework was launched in Amsterdam, introducing two new sections (which override the previous ones) entitled “reporting guidance and principles” and “standard disclosures”. These are designed to help companies to decide what material issues are most important for their company and how performance against these issues is best disclosed. For more information, go to www.globalreporting.org
DEFRA Environmental KPIs – Reporting Guidelines for UK Business
Following the announcement in 2005 that the OFR was no longer going to be forced, DEFRA, in collaboration with Trucost, published a new set of environmental reporting guidelines, designed to help businesses address their most significant environmental impacts and report on them in a way that meets the needs of current regulation, such as the EU Accounts Modernisation Directive (AMD). For more information, visit DEFRA
Sigma Guidelines – putting sustainable development into practice
The Sigma Guidelines were first launched in 1999 and again in 2003 by the BSI, Forum for the Future and AccountAbility These guidelines aim to provide clear, practical advice to companies looking to improve their sustainable development performance and disclosure. It is split into three core sections: Sigma Guidance Principles, which help a company develop a framework through which it can contribute to sustainable development; Sigma Management Framework, which is split into 4 core phases and help a company develop, plan, deliver, monitor and report on its performance and the Sigma Toolkit which offers advice and guidance on particular challenges, for example, stakeholder engagement. For more information, see www.projectsigma.co.uk