The current state of sustainability reporting lacks useful information for decision-making. Specifically, this paper examines the sustainability report of a major multinational organization from the perspective of accounting and the qualities of information as defined by the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Global Reporting Initiative. Fifty-eight graduate accounting students were assigned an exercise that involved analyzing Wal-Mart's 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility report within the context of the GRI's Principles of Quality Reporting. The results indicated that the Report failed to provide useful information for stakeholders and was more of an instrument of public relations. While the Report failed to meet many of the GRI's Principles, the students believed the most serious flaw was the absence of cost and segment information. Without mandates the only viable mechanism to improve sustainability reports is for GRI to certify those reports that strictly adhere to the Principles of Quality Reporting.
The New Zeaiand export meat industry has been through a considerable number ofchanges in the 1980s.Thederqulation ofcxportslaughterfacilitics, Supplementary Minimum Prices, Producer Board intervention, declining livestock numbers and domestic cost prcssurcs have all affected the performance of the domcstically based processing scctor. Major changes in market access and dc mand have influenced off-shore marketing operations, particularly for shccpmeats. Additionally, there has bcen a change in the type of meat exported with a greater proportion of further processed product shipped in recent years. As an example of the impact of thcse developments on livestock producers, the producer share of the United Kingdom wholesale market return for a representative prime lamb carcase has fallen from 40 per cent in 1978 to 25 per cent in 1988.In this article the pattern of intervcntion in the New Zealand pastoral meat industries from the mid-1960s is detailed, ernphasising the different environments of the beef and sheepmeat enterprises. Then the principal factors influencing domestic processing margins for these products are empirically examincd. Altcrnative model specifications and alternative estimation tcchniques arc compared and contrasted. The results o f thcse analyses are discussed in terms of the historical patterns of assistance and structural change, and in terms of current rationalisation prcssurcs on the meat proccssing sector.The New Zealand meat industry is a major contributor to foreign exchange earni:Igs with the value of meat and byproducts comprising over 25 per cent of total merchandise export value. The marketing of meat destined for export is usually performed by private companies or
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