Preparation of a Sustainability report

Managing the upsides and downsides of sustainability reporting is a key topic for the boardroom – both to protect against regulatory breaches, and to build trust and confidence in all stakeholders. Pressure to conform comes from many directions, not least the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), investors, staff and customers. The reporting of sustainability information must therefore be appropriately controlled, to ensure it is reliable, accurate and complete. The demands on organisations, and the individuals who lead them to get this right, are only set to increase.

A key aim of the CSRD is to improve and enforce sustainability reporting and to ensure disclosures meet assurance standards. European Sustainability Reporting Standard (ESRS) 2 in particular requires companies to report on their governance processes and controls including very specifically the main features of the risk management and internal control system over sustainability reporting.

Managing sustainability reporting requires close cooperation between many teams and stakeholders within a business. It is a multidisciplinary topic involving all aspects of governance, operations, internal audit, internal control, finance, compliance, and reporting.