Risk dominates sustainability reporting – US, UK, Canada study

Sustainability is clearly on the corporate agenda, just not the agenda that activists might like to see. According to a study by accountancy organisations in the US, UK and Canada, compliance and regulatory risk dominate the decisions of companies when they report on sustainability issues. Although the introduction to the findings states that "profitability and other strategic factors are also significant", that sentiments doesn't come through quite so strongly in the numbers:

• Large companies: 34 per cent identified compliance as the top ranked critical driver; 32 per cent identified managing reputational risk as second.
  
• Small companies: 24 per cent identified compliance as most critical; 19 per cent identified cost cutting and efficiency as next most.

Large companies have more robust sustainability capabilities than small companies, with 79 per cent of larger ones reporting that they have a formal sustainability strategy, compared with only a third of the smaller ones. Another quarter say they'll have one, though, in the next two years. The study was undertaken by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the American Institute of CPAs and the Chartered Accountants of Canada.

Source document: The joint report, "Evolution of corporate sustainability practices: Perspectives from the UK, US and Canada," is a 24-page pdf file.