The UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative

Lugt, Cornelis T. van der

doi:10.4324/9781351281003-15

Cited by 13 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…Despite the diversity of approaches, there is some level of agreement about the issues that should be reported. The key disclosure themes and indicators of environmental performance covered or recommended in sustainability reporting frameworks include GHG emissions, energy use, water consumption (use), water and air pollution, waste generation, and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) due to land use changes (UNCTAD, 2016; Van der Lugt et al , 2020). However, the lack of consistency in the inclusion of primary producers may create challenges for comparison of the environmental performance of businesses and supply chains, especially those in the food, beverage and apparel sector.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SEEA EA) provides guidance for the empirical measurement and accounting for NC, and the ES that NC generates (UNCEEA, 2021a), including estimates of changes to NC and ES resulting from land use change. Formal frameworks for compiling, aggregating and analysing information about NC provide standardised approaches for investment analysts (Accountancy Europe, 2019; Blackrock, 2016; Capitals Coalition, 2020b; Hoogervorst, 2019; Van der Lugt et al , 2020) to judge whether changes to NC, resource use and environmental performance indicate whether the entity or supply chain is maintaining, consuming or regenerating its stocks of natural, financial, produced and social capital. Application of the SEEA at the individual entity level can also provide useful information for policy design and evaluation (EC et al , 2012); however, the methods to do so require further development (Hein et al , 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To achieve change, financial organisations are increasingly allocating capital to entities that are addressing these issues (Generation, 2012; Guthrie, 2016; IFAC, 2015), creating both opportunities and accountability challenges for managers of natural capital (NC). Investors and brand leaders around the world are increasingly integrating environmental, social and corporate governance factors into their strategic and operational decisions (Van der Lugt et al , 2020) by investing in the development and application of frameworks and standards to measure, communicate and improve their environmental performance, inclusive of their supply chains (Capitals Coalition, 2020a, 2020c; Kashmanian and Moore, 2014; Kering, 2018; Natural Capital Coalition, 2016a; Patagonia, 2014; Van der Lugt et al , 2020). Governments are also reliant on corporate reporting as a primary source of information about SDG progress (UNCTAD, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there is a lack of consistency in the reporting scope and methods, with organisations using a wide range of different approaches (Accountancy Europe, 2019; Bartels et al , 2016; EY and BCCCC, 2017; FSC and ACSI, 2015; Kwon et al , 2018; Loweth, 2017; Van der Lugt et al , 2020). The 2020 Carrots and Sticks report on global trends in sustainability reporting highlighted the existence of over 600 reporting provisions (an increase from 383 in 2016) (Van der Lugt et al , 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whether there should be a single agreed standard for sustainability reporting is an active area of debate. While it is recognised that the diversity of reporting frameworks and instruments may reduce their utility for comparing the performance of different businesses (Blackrock, 2016; CDSB, 2018b; EY and BCCCC, 2017; Kwon et al , 2018; Lambooy et al , 2018), it is also accepted that a “one-size-fits-all” approach may not be appropriate (UNCTAD, 2016; Van der Lugt et al , 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A natural capital accounting framework to communicate the environmental credentials of individual wool-producing businesses

Ogilvy

O’Brien²,

Lawrence

et al. 2022

SAMPJ

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Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate methods that sustainability-conscious brands can use to include their primary producers in the measurement and reporting of the environment and sustainability performance of their supply chains. It explores three questions: How can farm businesses provide information required in sustainability reporting? What are the challenges and opportunities experienced in preparing and presenting the information? What future research and policy instruments might be needed to resolve these issues. Design/methodology/approach This study identifies and describes methods to provide the farm-level information needed for environmental performance and sustainability reporting frameworks. It demonstrates them by compiling natural capital accounts and environmental performance information for two wool producers in the grassy woodland biome of Eastern Australia; the contrasting history and management of these producers would be expected to result in different environmental performances. Findings The authors demonstrated an approach to NC accounting that is suitable for including primary producers in environmental performance reporting of supply chains and that can communicate whether individual producers are sustaining, improving or degrading their NC. Measurements suitable for informing farm management and for the estimation of supply chain performance can simultaneously produce information useful for aggregation to regional and national assessments. Practical implications The methods used should assist sustainability-conscious supply chains to more accurately assess the environmental performance of their primary producers and to use these assessments in selective sourcing strategies to improve supply chain performance. Empirical measures of environmental performance and natural capital have the potential to enable evaluation of the effectiveness of sustainability accounting frameworks in inducing businesses to reduce their environmental impacts and improve the condition of the natural capital they depend on. Social implications Two significant social implications exist for the inclusion of primary producers in the sustainability and environmental performance reporting of supply chains. Firstly, it presently takes considerable time and expense for producers to prepare this information. Governments and members of the supply chain should acknowledge the value of this information to their organisations and consider sharing some of the cost of its preparation with primary producers. Secondly, the “additionality” requirement commonly present in existing frameworks may perversely exclude already high-performing producers from being recognised. The methods proposed in this paper provide a way to resolve this. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to describe detailed methods of collecting data for natural capital accounting and environmental performance reporting for individual farms and the first to compile the information and present it in a manner coherent with the Kering EP&L and the UN SEEA EA. The authors believe that this will make a significant contribution to the development of fair and standardised ways of measuring individual farm performance and the performance of food, beverage and apparel supply chains.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A natural capital accounting framework to communicate the environmental credentials of individual wool-producing businesses

Ogilvy

O’Brien²,

Lawrence

et al. 2022

SAMPJ

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Circular economy in corporate sustainability reporting: A review of organisational approaches

et al. 2021

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A growing commitment from companies to implement circular economy (CE) strategies demands the development of guidelines for consistent related external communication. The fields of non-financial reporting and sustainability are well established with numerous available international reporting frameworks and approaches; however, there is still an absence of standardised reporting principles and procedures for publishing progress on circularity. In this context, this article aims to explore how companies could include CE within their corporate sustainability reports, through an academic literature review and content analysis of existent reporting approaches. Results showed a clear disconnection between CE and sustainability reporting literature. Overall, only a few of the revised reporting approaches explicitly mention CE, and the guidance given to companies is very general, inconsistent and places the responsibility of selecting performance assessment approaches on the companies. The analysis contributes to identifying opportunities for transparent external communication of CE issues, as well as exploring the challenges and limitations.

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Organizational sustainability schemes align with weak sustainability

Demastus

Landrum

2023

Bus Strat Env

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While sustainability research is expansive, studies of business‐internal practices and resulting sustainability outcomes are largely unexplored. This research fills this gap by assessing the sustainability schemes that organizations internally employ to guide sustainability efforts. Content analysis is applied to 20 environmentally oriented sustainability schemes, through the triangulated lenses of strong sustainability and sensemaking theories. Each scheme is quantitatively assessed for positioning within the Stages of Sustainability model and rank abundance curves are generated to compare relative sustainability strength among the schemes for potential recommendations in practice or future research. Results show that 100% of the sustainability schemes in this study align with various forms of weak sustainability, although five commendable schemes are more advanced than the others. Given this finding, it is expected that applying the sustainability schemes from our sample in research and practice will perpetuate weak, business‐as‐usual, sustainability while prolonging the wait for strong ecological sustainability. Novel contributions of this research include empirical evidence to support claims that sustainability schemes are aligned with weak sustainability, and the identification of the sustainability strength of sustainability schemes. Additionally, numerous calls from researchers to consider sustainability strength in research are heeded. Implications for practitioners, scheme developers, and academics relate to the development of schemes, business‐internal practices, research, and teaching that aligns with ecological science‐oriented, strong sustainability instead of the current approach that aligns with weak sustainability.

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The UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

A natural capital accounting framework to communicate the environmental credentials of individual wool-producing businesses

A natural capital accounting framework to communicate the environmental credentials of individual wool-producing businesses

Circular economy in corporate sustainability reporting: A review of organisational approaches

Organizational sustainability schemes align with weak sustainability

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