Abstract

The number of sustainable business reports has grown over recent years, but the quality of the reports is often poor. This paper examines what should appear in a good basic sustainability report. This is much less than what has been suggested by GRI, A4S, and similar bodies providing comprehensive advice. Waikato Management School (WMS) provides leadership in sustainable business practices. In New Zealand, both the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA) provide annual awards for the best sustainability reports. WMS has a member on each of the judging panels and it provides further help by creating a short list of possible award winners to the judges of the ACCA competition. The NZICA judges create a shortlist for themselves. In 2011, a total of 10 organisations appeared on the two shortlists combined because they were considered amongst the best sustainability reports entered for the awards. This paper describes what the minimal requirements of a reasonable sustainable report should be. It then analyses the contents of each of the shortlisted reports to determine how well these leading sustainability reports measure up against the WMS minimal criteria.