At a glance

Explore how business leaders – particularly finance professionals – approach opportunities in reporting while navigating concerns around commercially sensitive information, organisational readiness, and stakeholder expectations. 

Discover support for leaders, organisations and professional accountants: strengthen your business case towards more sustainable operations and tailor the timing of opportunity communication to your respective unique circumstances.

 

Key insights and takeaways

  • Opportunities sit at the intersection of strategy, sustainability and capital allocation.
  • When pursuing opportunities, organisations must first seek alignment and develop confidence internally – before working towards communicating opportunities externally. 
  • Collaborate, co-create and move beyond compliance to connect sustainability and financial information with long-term value creation and organisation resilience. 

In this report, ACCA uncovers how business leaders – particularly finance professionals – approach opportunities in reporting while navigating concerns around commercially sensitive information, organisational readiness, and stakeholder expectations. 

The research aims to stimulate much needed discussion on this relatively underexplored topic of opportunity reporting – and support leaders, organisations and professional accountants.

According to the report, a balanced approach is vital when evaluating opportunities that could reasonably be expected to affect the organisation’s prospects. For example, importance placed on sustainability and ESG factors should not automatically supersede financial or economic benefit and vice versa. Instead, organisations need to assess these considerations pragmatically in a balanced way. 

What are opportunities? 

Past ACCA research explains that opportunities arise from potential activities an organisation can undertake – such as nature restoration or strategic investment – that result in positive outcomes for the organisation and wider stakeholders.  

Reflecting on these perspectives, sustainability and finance leaders place opportunities at the intersection of strategy, sustainability and capital allocation. Identifying opportunities is more than setting aspirations or implementing initiatives – the opportunities need to function as a strategic lever that will strengthen long-term value creation and improve organisation resilience.  

Leaders should also recognise that – despite the climate-first approach adopted by many jurisdictions – a holistic approach is needed to really unlock and maximise value from sustainability-related opportunities.  

Seeking opportunities at the intersection of environment, social and governance (ESG) pillars of sustainability not only enables organisations to accelerate positive social and environmental impacts – but also to transform their economic value creation.  

Responding to evolving information needs  

Corporate reporting – in particular relating to sustainability – has a growing influence on consumers’ choices and behaviours, with clear links to brand loyalty and revenue generation.  

Reflecting on these findings and discussions, sustainability and finance leaders, and organisations may apply a combination of approaches to manage challenges around communicating their opportunities. 

Approaches to manage reporting challenges

1. Move beyond compliance. Connect sustainability drivers and financial outcomes with long-term value creation and organisation resilience.  

2. Understand the expectations of key stakeholders: Clearly communicate how the organisation’s value creation will evolve over time.  

3. Ensure that processes are in place to actively identify short, medium and long- term opportunities – allowing the organisation to pivot as needed.  

4. Be comfortable with imperfect data on opportunities: Be transparent about managing trade-offs and information gaps, stay alert to possible ethical dilemmas, and build in relevant verification and independent assurance to support continual improvement in information quality. 

5. Use technology to facilitate timely access to decision-useful information and reduce the risk of information overload.  

6. Upskill and build capacity across all levels: Begin with equipping boards and senior management with skills to fulfil their strategy and oversight roles.  

7. Collaborate and co-create: Build confidence and refine opportunity narratives through peer-to-peer collaboration and closed room discussions within and across functions, industries and sectors.  

8.Embrace geographical and cultural differences: There’s no ‘one size fits all solution’ – consumer awareness, regulatory preparedness, economic pressures, and business models can significantly vary within and across geographies. 

Using this report  

To fully appreciate the benefits of this research, we encourage you to: