Commissioned by the Federal Department of the Environment and Heritage, the State of Sustainability Reporting in Australia 2005 was conducted by the Centre for Australian Ethical Research, in collaboration with KPMG and Deni Greene Consulting Services.

It is the third annual report on sustainability reporting, using information from Australian companies in the Standard & Poor's/ASX 300 index, 100 private companies and 100 unlisted public companies.

However, given the emphasis on transparency that underlines the practice of sustainability reporting, it is interesting to note that less than 16% of the companies included in the survey responded to the survey issued by the report authors.

The report found that although the incidence of sustainability reporting continues to increase, almost doubling since 2002, the rate of increase has dropped significantly.

Of the 486 companies surveyed in the report, 24% had produced a sustainability report for 2005, with unlisted companies more likely to have produced a sustainability report than S&P/ASX 300 companies, of which 18% had produced a report.

Of the lower 200 companies listed on the S&P/ASX 300, only 8% had produced a sustainability report.

Comparatively, 52% of the companies listed in the Global Fortune Top 250 produce sustainability reports, with the figure rising to 64% if sustainability is properly addressed in annual reporting.

Analysts told www.EnvironmentalManagementNews.net it is probable that sustainability analysis is being conducted by a greater number of S&P/ASX 300 companies than reported, with companies likely to benchmark their performance and produce a report after improvements have been made.

The survey found that the rate of reporting is highest in manufacturing (35.3%) and mining (19.3%) sectors, followed by the wholesale trade (10.9%), electricity, gas and water supply (9.2%) industries.

Sustainability reports are increasingly being produced as stand-alone documents as opposed to inclusion in annual reports or on websites, the report found.

The report also indicated that an increasing number of reports were being generated using the internationally recognised Global Reporting Initiative guidelines, although only 34% of the reports have been – or will be – independently verified.

EnvironmentalManagementNews.net