July 14, 2016
One size fits all reporting is not practical and it will ultimately lead to discouraged reporting efforts on behalf of large organizations. Below are the major issues associated with Environmental Sustainability Reporting today:
- The range of topics is very broad. It includes climate change, resource scarcity, corporate social responsibility, and corporate citizenship.
Why are corporations allowed to hoard NATURAL resources in the first place. Those resources should be viewed as birth right for ALL the Earths inhabitants.
- Information made available to investors is inconsistent, incomplete, and often obfuscated to cater to corporate profits vs environmental and social well being.
- Reporting of corporate sustainability is primarily voluntary. This is problematic because of corporate self interest and interest in profits over environmental health and social responsibility. Make it mandatory for organizations to identify where they are causing damage and creating risk. Once identified its much easier to address the nature of the issues presented.
- The disclosures that are required do not adequately address climate change. This goes back to the "one sized fits all" philosophy used currently. Each reporting function should be developed on an individual organization basis, submitted to the SEC for approval, and then a decision can be made based upon the perceived effectiveness.