The ability of an organisation to tell its sustainability story successfully requires several essential steps that make the idea a reality.
Organisations should apply the right mindset to sustainability reporting by focusing on how ESG and sustainability are embedded end-to-end across the organisation’s entire operations.
This way, reporting results from a connected and integrated thinking organisation. We can group the steps required into three stages, namely.
The Evaluate stage, the Develop stage and the Operate stage. Each stage spells out the steps needed to make an organisation’s sustainability reporting a reality.
First is the evaluation stage where organisations assess their current state. It involves reviewing the organisation’s strategy, business model and current non-financial reporting maturity level.
At this stage, organisations analyse the risks and opportunities resulting from embedding sustainability into the organisation for long-term strategic planning.
This way, the organisation can identify bespoke material sustainability issues impacting it in the short, medium and long term.
Next is the development stage where the organisation refreshes its strategy based on the last stage’s results. Define strategic pillars and prepare sustainability goal statements with the key performance targets.
This is also the stage where the organisation cascades the strategy across its entire operation and value chain through changes in policies, procedures and processes, including data.
Organisations also develop accountability frameworks at various corporate levels while building capacity, awareness and communication programmes across the organisation and with its stakeholders.
Operating is the final stage that involves setting up the reporting dashboards for monitoring and risk management based on the strategic targets established at the strategy refresh.
In this stage, ensure continuous monitoring and evaluation of performance to build trust with stakeholders.
The last step in this final stage is to report and disclose information that tells an integrated and connected story from strategy to performance.
This way, sustainability reporting results from a sustainability-driven or purpose-led strategy and helps organisations avoid risks of greenwashing, failure to meet stakeholder expectations, and non-compliance with regulatory requirements.
Akinyemi Awodumila is a Partner at Deloitte East Africa. He is an author who writes and speaks widely on corporate reporting topics.
