Annual reporting isn’t the most exciting topic of discussion for even the geekiest of people.  To expand the discussion to integrated reporting—when companies integrate their financial report with sustainability and CSR indicators—is a formidable task.  But for the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)—the developer of global sustainability reporting guidelines—this is a conversation that begins with a broader economic question: Why is the U.S., the world’s biggest economy and the erstwhile Mecca for social entrepreneurship lagging behind?  In other words, “Why so slow, America?”  That’s how David Vidal, director of The Conference Board’s Center for Corporate Citizenship & Sustainability put it, referring to the minuscule percentage of companies that are embracing the push to redefine corporate reporting and have begun publishing annual sustainability reports. (In 2009, 12% of all reports came from the U.S.; 45% were from Europe.)  The occasion: The Launch of Focal Point USA, the agency’s first official presence in the U.S.  Vidal was on hand to moderate a panel with several prominent practitioners of the corporate sustainability world, including:  While the panelists highlighted several paradigms that come with infusing the traditional 10-K with environmental and social information, each had a common objective: To explain why they chose to publish sustainability reports and how they countered the challenges that emerged along the way.  What stood out, however, was how each speaker contextualized corporate social responsibility to align with their respective business models, hence elevating their percentage of success.  For Marriott, for example, pursuing CSR meant an effective way to drive employee training and development, but for Bloomberg, the advantage was more, shall we say, mercenary.  Continue reading at Vault’s CSR blog: In Good Company.
Why do companies publish sustainability reports? At the official launch of GRI on Wall Street, executives from UPS, Bloomberg, Avon and Marriott put CSR reporting in perspective.