ESG - reporting to show progress

I finished lecturing on reporting, indexes, ratings, and SDGs at Ibmec MBA on ESG this week. It was a great experience to exchange new findings with the students and colleagues. After all, this is a hot topic with daily new reporting methods, evaluation procedures, and directives.?

Together with the student, we had the chance to review?CSR / ESG reports of enterprises in different periods, mostly between 2017 and 2022. We consider the eight GRI reporting principles as guidelines to evaluate the reports and were aware of the policy changes over time. On the other hand, five years is insufficient to achieve a significant positive impact on goals and set new ones.??

In general, the quality and diversity of the reports increased. We also had the impression that the companies took the reporting needs more seriously as other departments were responsible for the reporting process, and the information was better presented; after all the requirements changed.?

On the other hand, some reports lacked comparability over time, insufficiently gave context to the big numbers presented, or missed clarity by not using graphics sustaining the evolution towards a given target, for instance.

Far from claiming scientific accuracy of these results, this exercise demonstrated the importance of monitoring, reporting, and verifying progress accurately with simple indicators.?

This was also why I wore my climate stripes tie as a reminder of the reason why we are doing all the training and reporting; to get these stripes, this summarizing indicator, back to a blueish level. And it was also good to give students a laugh.??