The challenge
Integrated reports, which combines financial and non-financial content, are becoming increasingly important internationally. The EU’s CSR Directive has given this format further impetus. Integrated reporting has great potential: it can act as a catalyst that links a company’s sustainability effort even more closely with its core processes. But what does a successful integrated report look like? Many companies are still very uncertain.
Our role
We conducted Germany’s first comprehensive study on the quality of integrated reports. From the study we derived a set of quality criteria, which enabled us to establish comparability and highlight current trends. The result was the first ranking of integrated reports published by German companies.
Our solution
- derive quality criteria from reporting standards and legal requirements
- evaluate about 50 integrated reports of German companies and publish the results at www.integratedreporting.de
- conduct open dialogue with companies and stakeholders on the study’s design and results.
Transformational potential
- raise companies and the financial markets’ awareness of the challenges and opportunities of integrating reporting
- identify specific areas where companies’ CR teams can further improve integrated reports
- formulate recommendations and create a database of best practices.
