Connecting New Stakeholders to Sustainability Data — A Case Study

Most people do not have access to reliable corporate sustainability information that can be used for decision making, yet many companies publish sustainability data. Business students from around the world have been working to structure this data in order to assess corporate sustainability performance and improve the accessibility of publicly available materials.

Their work is generating new insights into how companies can improve transparency to their stakeholders, and how citizens can start a public dialogue on the issues that matter to them.

Through our Sustainable Development Goals Research program in partnership with the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative, we have spent over two years running research projects with universities that engage the next generation of leaders in challenging issues of corporate disclosure and transparency.

This project has not only collected hundreds of thousands of open data points about company sustainability, but has also increased access to the topic in higher education, and created an important basis for understanding improvements needed in current company reporting and disclosure practices.

The new report Disclosure and Reporting Against the Sustainable Development Goals is part of this joint project between WikiRate, PRME and the University of Wollongong, which looks at a case study of thirty-seven companies researched by forty University of Wollongong students who, as part of their coursework, collected SDG data on a subset of company-members of the Corporate Action Group (CAG).

The purpose of the analysis was to (1) discover what kinds of barriers prevent researchers from collecting accurate data on company sustainability performance, and (2) investigate disclosure rates of CAG companies on key topics connected to the SDGs.

Here are some of our key findings and recommendations:

1. Current corporate reporting practices inhibit researchers from capturing accurate data — most companies disclose their sustainability data in text-heavy PDF files which are challenging to interpret and accurately extract from. To improve the quality and accessibility of the information they disclose, companies should at a minimum report their sustainability data in a structured, downloadable format, similar to financial data reporting.
2. The scope of data points is not well-reported and causes confusion — companies often report on different areas of their operations within the same report, which hinders a researcher’s ability to make comparisons between companies. This can be improved with tables and clear labelling of the data reported.
3. Materiality determinations and reporting need improvement — companies make their own judgements about what is material for sustainability disclosures, and often these decisions are not clearly reported on. To facilitate comparative analysis, there is a need to standardize materiality at an industry level, and to include more stakeholders in the process of identifying materiality to impacted communities. For companies, it is important to clearly report materiality decisions and account for why certain indicators are omitted. To support standardization and inclusivity in materiality dialogues, WikiRate allows for a proliferation of metrics, benchmarks and comparisons.
4. Companies and standards providers do not differentiate between methodologies for reporting and methodologies for ESG data research — companies use reporting methodologies to prepare data for reports, while consumers of the data require methodologies relating to research and data aggregation across companies and their varied reporting methodologies. Understanding the ‘data user’ perspective can help companies and standards create data which is accessible and usable for their stakeholders.

Ultimately, the aim of WikiRate is to ensure that we are all able to learn about and help improve company sustainability by having open datasets available. Our vision of transparency is one of inclusivity — supporting companies to reach all their stakeholders: investors, NGOs, students, academics, activists, workers, consumers, policy makers and so on.

We all stand to benefit from making corporate sustainability data easier to access, analyze and compare. We must collaboratively continue to pursue ways to improve the accessibility of, and engagement with, this important public resource for a diverse range of stakeholders.

If you have any questions or comments about the report, or want to include your company information in the WikiRate database, please email info@wikirate.org.

Are you a university educator who wants to get their students involved with the project? Email info@wikirate.org with the subject line ‘SDGs Program’ for more information.

Finally, we wish to extend a heartfelt thank you to the students and professors of the University of Wollongong as well as the staff of PRME for their involvement in this project.