Raising the Bar – Advancing Environmental Disclosure in Sustainability Reporting
United Nations Environment Programme
November 2015 :: 70 pages
Pdf: http://apps.unep.org/publications/index.php?option=com_pub&task=download&file=011862_en
Overview
This global cross-sector report assesses the environmental dimension of sustainability reporting and provides recommendations to make environmental reporting important to all stakeholders. It analyses what the key and most common environmental disclosure items are and provides practical recommendations for companies and other reporting organizations on how these items should be measured and reported, supported with best practice examples. In addition, it explores emerging areas of research in this domains, as well as innovative reporting practices.

Press Release
Raising the Bar on Corporate Sustainability Reporting to Meet Ecological Challenges Globally
A new UNEP Report urges companies to align their sustainability performance and reporting to match expectations of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Paris, 12 November 2015 – Companies are failing to accurately reflect the scale and extent of their environmental impacts, a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has found.

In the case of greenhouse gas emissions, only 9 out of 108 (8 per cent) surveyed companies have established reduction targets in accordance with the science-based target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius – the central goal of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, December 2015.

Launched today at the Reporting 3.0 Conference in Berlin, Germany, the report, Raising the Bar – Advancing Environmental Disclosure in Sustainability Reporting, calls on companies to do more to address the environmental and social impacts of their operations, as required in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UNEP’s analysis of 108 company sustainability reports found that they typically disclose data on four key areas:
:: Greenhouse Gas Emissions (reported by 95 per cent of surveyed companies);
:: Energy (83 per cent);
:: Water (81 per cent);
:: Materials/Waste (75 per cent).

However, the quality of these reports is insufficient to represent the full impacts of a company’s use of resources and materials on the environment and on communities. Such information would improve corporate decision-making and add value to businesses in the short and long terms…