Integrated reporting
Definition:
- A concise communication of an organisation’s strategy, governance and performance.
- Demonstrates the links between its financial performance and its wider social, environmental and economic context.
- Show how organisations create value over the short, medium and long term.
Its aim is to:
- Enable more effective decision making at board level.
- Improve the information available to investors.
- Encourage more integrated thinking and business practices.
Guiding principles
The following Guiding Principles underpin the preparation of an integrated report, informing the content of the report and how information is presented:
- Strategic focus and future orientation
An integrated report should provide insight into the organisation’s strategy, and how it relates to the organisation’s ability to create value in the short, medium and long term, and to its use of and effects on the capitals
- Connectivity of information
An integrated report should show a holistic picture of the combination, interrelatedness and dependencies between the factors that affect the organisation’s ability to create value over time
- Stakeholder relationships
An integrated report should provide insight into the nature and quality of the organisation’s relationships with its key stakeholders, including how and to what extent the organisation understands, takes into account and responds to their legitimate needs and interests
- Materiality
An integrated report should disclose information about matters that substantively affect the organisation’s ability to create value over the short, medium and long term
- Conciseness
An integrated report should be concise.
Content elements
An integrated report includes eight Content Elements that are fundamentally linked to each other and are not mutually exclusive:
- Organisational overview and external environment
What does the organisation do and what are the circumstances under which it operates?
- Governance
How does the organisation’s governance structure support its ability to create value in the short, medium and long term?
- Business model
What is the organisation’s business model?
- Risks and opportunities
What are the specific risks and opportunities that affect the organisation’s ability to create value over the short, medium and long term, and how is the organisation dealing with them?
- Strategy and resource allocation
Where does the organisation want to go and how does it intend to get there?
- Performance
To what extent has the organisation achieved its strategic objectives for the period and what are its outcomes in terms of effects on the capitals?
- Outlook
What challenges and uncertainties is the organisation likely to encounter in pursuing its strategy, and what are the potential implications for its business model and future performance?
- Basis of presentation
How does the organisation determine what matters to include in the integrated report and how are such matters quantified or evaluated?
- Reliability and completeness
An integrated report should include all material matters, both positive and negative, in a balanced way and without material error
- Consistency and comparability
The information in an integrated report should be presented
(a) on a basis that is consistent over time, and
(b) in a way that enables comparison with other organisations to the extent it is material to the organisation’s own ability to create value over time.
