New Year, new Sustainability Report.  Or is it?  It’s January, and the scramble to compile a Sustainability report for calendar year 2023 is on.  The annual Sustainability report is an important milestone, but it is no longer the only reporting mechanism.  In fact, it may not even be the most important or impactful.

Reporting standards and frameworks have proliferated.  Some have shifted from voluntary to mandatory, driven by new laws and regulations.  Others are “voluntary”, but failure to report or communicate poses risk – for example, losing a customer.  Sustainability reporting and communications is no longer a marketing-driven exercise.  It’s compliance.  It’s embedded into reporting and disclosures to capital markets and business partners.  Sustainability reporting and communications now extend to different parties, each with their own needs.  Furthermore, reporting and communications are hardly limited to an annual process.  Just ask any Chief Sustainability Officer what is in her/his inbox for the last two weeks.   The news used to be a daily event, with print newspapers in the morning and a television newscast in the evening.  Now we get news via different channels all day long.  Sustainability reporting and communications is moving this way.   (Read More)