Despite falling revenue and profits, Canadian executives still consider sustainability an important business issue.
A new survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the Canadian Financial Executives Research Foundation found that 90% of financial executives consider reporting on environmental and social impacts relevant to achieving their business goals. More than 90% said it was important to communicate sustainability performance to senior management and corporate boards.
However, more than half of respondents said they didn't have an effective strategy to manage these issues, and less than half said they have an effective system to measure sustainability performance. Almost 80% of respondents said the average investor doesn't have enough information about the sustainability performance of Canadian companies.
Mike Harris, PwC's leader in the firm's sustainable business solutions practice, said this disconnect between intention and corporate reporting lies in the fact that sustainability remains an optional component of corporate reporting, which results in a lack of acceptance of general measurement and reporting standards. That has made it difficult for companies to develop the data collection systems to measure sustainability.
According to the survey, only 30% of public companies comply with such global standards as the Global Reporting Initiative and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Only 17% of private companies surveyed comply with the standards.
Despite the lack of acceptance of global reporting standards, nearly 75% of survey respondents said that sustainability reporting will become more stringent as legislation relating to disclosure will likely grow over the next five years.