Where is the report?

Defining the primary source of reporting
When the GRI Guidelines were first published in 2000, the ‘sustainability report’ was generally produced as a single printed document containing all the relevant information. However, advances in digital technology, coupled with an increase in the number of versions and types of report that organizations are providing (e.g. summary reports, integrated reports, online reports, regional reports), means that identifying “the Sustainability report” is not always straightforward. It is more accurate to talk about sustainability “reporting” – i.e. across a number of channels.

In order to ensure consistency in our research, we had to define the ‘primary source of reporting’. This primary source of reporting was easy to identify where the only online presence was a PDF report, or where clear advice was given about the fullest source of reporting. However, as discussed in Digital Reporting Formats and The Impact of Technology on Trust, defining the primary report is not always simple. More information on how we defined this primary source of reporting is available in the How we did it section of the site.

Here, we look at how easy it was to access the primary source of reporting, and how GRI information is communicated beyond the parameters of this primary source. We also look at other reporting content being published by organizations.

Locating the primary source of reporting
Across the 40 organizations that we reviewed, the primary source of reporting was accessible within an average of 2 clicks from the website’s homepage. 12 (30%) organizations provided a link to their primary source directly from the homepage, and 33 (82.5%) organizations had a link to a sustainability section on their homepage.

Sources of GRI information
With the development and use of new digital technologies, there is increased potential for organizations to provide GRI information in more locations and using a broader mix of channels. All things being equal, the greater the number of sources of indicator data, the more difficult it is to get a comprehensive overview of reporting against GRI disclosures.

We found that 24 organizations (60%) included all their GRI information either in their primary source of reporting (16 organizations, 40%), or together in the primary source of reporting combined with an annual report and accounts (8 organizations, 20%).

Of the remaining organizations:

• 5 organizations (12.5%) used two sources (where the second source was not the annual reports and accounts).
• 6 organizations (15%) used three sources
• 2 organizations (5%) used four sources
• 1 organization (2.5%) used five sources

2 organizations (5%) did not provide a GRI Content Index, making it difficult to assess how many locations were used (which also means that they cannot be classified as GRI reports, as these require a GRI Content Index).

One organizations (see below) produced an integrated Sustainability Report and Financial Report and Accounts, which included all the relevant GRI information.

When calculating the number of sources of GRI information we included each of the following sources:

• current sustainability report
• older sustainability reports
• supplementary or issue-based reports
• annual report or statutory financial reporting document
• policy documents
• website

The GRI Content Index

As the number of sources used to provide GRI information increased, we became increasingly dependent on the GRI Content Index as a navigation tool. In the absence of an easily accessible and interactive GRI Content Index, tracking down all of the information that constitutes GRI reporting can be very difficult.

Because we found the GRI Content Index to be an important navigation tool, we looked at how accessible it was from the reporting organization’s homepage. We looked at how easily accessible the GRI Content Index was, by counting the number of steps users had to take to find it:

As mentioned elsewhere in this research, 2 organizations failed to provide a GRI Content Index.

Take a look at the How we did it section of the site for an explanation of how we defined a ‘step.’

While a static GRI Content Index is useful, an interactive GRI Content Index makes it even easier to locate data of GRI disclosures, particularly when it is contained in a number of sources. 16 organizations (40%) in our sample provided some degree of interactivity in their GRI Content Index. The quality of indexing varied greatly, with some users providing links for all of the data and others only providing links to data located on websites. Also, in some cases the link was to a document (e.g. PDF) and not to the specific information, requiring the user to search for the information.

Interactive GRI Content Indices generally work better in full HTML reporting formats than they do in PDFs as it is easier to navigate back and forth between sources of information using web browser functionality.

Not just the primary source of reporting
33 organizations (82.5%) complement the primary source of sustainability reporting by providing previous years’ reports. On average across our sample, organizations provided 5 years of historical reports. The maximum we found was ten years.

Beyond what we defined as the primary source of reporting, the organizations we reviewed also provide a number of other types of more specialized reporting:

In addition, 8 organizations (20%) have translated versions of their primary source.

Keep reading: Digital reporting formats