Implementing Integrated Reporting

Sustainability, the environment, corporate accountability, social justice, integration – these are the buzzwords of our century. This book takes readers on a journey through the landscape of standard-setting giants and corporate reporting paradigms through the eyes of two companies that have taken very different paths toward integrated thinking. Both stories provide new insights into the transition to integrated reporting, as envisaged by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), and how integrated reporting is reshaping our views on transparency. However, the top-down approach adopted in studies of integrated reporting in practice has left many questions unanswered: Is it effective? How does it evolve into established practice? Is it just another management fad? This bottom-up critique answers all these questions and one more: Could integrated reporting become the corporate reporting norm? We shall see. Given its depth of coverage, the book appeals to IIRC academic community, participants in integrated reporting networks, and others interested in integrated reporting.

This book critically examines the implementation and adoption of integrated reporting (IR) in organizations and corporations. A relatively new area of policy and practice, IR has rapidly gained considerable prominence since the formation of the International Integrated Reporting Committee in 2010. The book analyzes the outcomes and benefits as well as the shortfalls of integrated reporting. It offers an introduction to the foundations of IR and a comprehensive overview of its use through a number of detailed case studies. Lastly, it discusses the outlook for further developments in sustainability accounting and reporting.

Sustainability, the environment, corporate accountability, social justice, integration - these are the buzzwords of our century. This book takes readers on a journey through the landscape of standard-setting giants and corporate reporting paradigms through the eyes of two companies that have taken very different paths toward integrated thinking. Both stories provide new insights into the transition to integrated reporting, as envisaged by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), and how integrated reporting is reshaping our views on transparency. However, the top-down approach adopted in studies of integrated reporting in practice has left many questions unanswered: Is it effective? How does it evolve into established practice? Is it just another management fad? This bottom-up critique answers all these questions and one more: Could integrated reporting become the corporate reporting norm? We shall see. Given its depth of coverage, the book appeals to IIRC academic community, participants in integrated reporting networks, and others interested in integrated reporting.

Integrated reporting in corporate communication is a process that results in improved communication, most visibly an ‘integrated report,’ about value creation over time. An integrated report is a concise communication about how an organization’s strategy, governance, performance, and prospects lead to the creation of value over the short, medium, and long term. It represents the integrated summarization of a company’s performance in terms of both financial and other relevant information. Integrated reporting provides greater context for performance data, clarifies how relevant information fits into operations or a business, and may help make decision making better in the long-term. The aim and scope of this book is to provide readers with an overview and analysis of the topics of both integrated financial reporting and a multiple capital model. Analyzing this topic through both a qualitative and quantitative framework, this important business topic is introduced and framed in the context of current market trends, while also including implications for business management professionals. This book provides a thorough examination of the topics of integrated reporting, management ramifications, and opportunities for management professionals. This easy to read and understand book provides numerous take away points, action items and implications. It includes real world examples, sources where more information can be obtained, and direct cause-to-effect examples, making it a valuable resource for readers.

This timely handbook provides a current and comprehensive examination of integrated reporting, both practical and research-based. It offers insights and different perspectives from more than 60 authors, including representatives of the International Integrated Reporting Council, Integrated Reporting Committee of South Africa, professional bodies and audit firms, as well as leading academics in the fields of integrated reporting, sustainability reporting and corporate social responsibility. This collected work provides an in-depth review of the development of integrated reporting, with a focus on the interpretation and guidance provided by the International Integrated Reporting Council. It encourages the development of new thinking and research topics in the area of integrated reporting (such as links between integrated reporting and reports focused on financial and corporate social responsibility matters), as well as showcasing how integrated reporting issues are seen and practiced in different parts of the world. The chapters include reviews of the most recent research, practitioner viewpoints, conceptual pieces, case studies and disclosure analyses. Accessible and engaging, this handbook will be an invaluable overview for those new to the field or those who are interested in ensuring they are up to date with its developments, as well as those who are concerned with how to construct an integrated report.

Sustainability Accounting and Integrated Reporting deals with organizations’ assessment, articulation and disclosure of their social and environmental impact on various groups in society. There is increasingly an understanding that financial information does not sufficiently discharge organizational accountability to members of society who are demanding an account of the social and environmental impacts of companies’ and other organizations’ activities. As a result, organizations report ever more social and environmental information, and there are simultaneous movements towards providing the information in an integrated fashion, showing how social and environmental activities influence each other, members of society and the financial aims of the organization. The book Sustainability Accounting and Integrated Reporting provides a broad and comprehensive review of the field, focusing on the interconnection between different elements of these topics, often dealt with in isolation. The book examines the accounting involved in the collection and analysis of data, control processes over the data, how information is reported to external parties, and the assurance of the information being reported. The book thereby provides an overview useful to practitioners (including sustainability managers, consultants, members of the accounting profession, and other assurance providers), academics, and students.

This book focuses on Integrated Reporting as a contemporary social and managerial innovation where a number of initiatives, organizations and individuals began to converge in response to the need for a consistent, collaborative and internationally accepted approach to redesign corporate reporting. Integrated Reporting is a process that results in communication of the annual “integrated report” which describes value creation over time. An integrated report is a concise communication about how an organization’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects lead to the creation of value over the short, medium and long term. This book offers a fresh perspective with expert contributions focusing on both the theoretical underpinnings and the practical challenges for the future of corporate reporting.

"One Report" refers to an emerging trend in business taking place throughout the world where companies are going beyond separate reports for financial and nonfinancial (e.g., corporate social responsibility or sustainability) results and integrating both into a single integrated report. At the same time, they are also leveraging the Internet to provide more detailed results to all of their stakeholders and for improving their level of dialogue and engagement with them. Providing best practice examples from companies around the world, One Report shows how integrated reporting adds tre.