Sustainability Reporting by the Top 100 Companies in the S&P 500 Index: Findings from Some Recent Data

Abstract

The research described in this paper examined sustainability reports and/or disclosures voluntarily published by some of the larger companies in the US for the year 2014. The term sustainability was considered interchangeable with corporate social responsibility in accordance with several of the past academic studies and the approach taken by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Data collected from the stand-alone reports or the website-based disclosures for the top 100 S&P 500®companies showed that, while the number of companies that published such information had grown over the years, there was both considerable variation in the format and volume of the information published, and variety in the sustainability initiatives pursued by different companies.The study showed a need to bring comparability in the published data. Also, companies that published the data should use independent, external assurance services to enhance the credibility of such data, which happened only for less than half of the sample.