Canada specific findings to be presented next in Toronto to mining, pharmaceutical and energy sector executives
CHICAGO, Oct. 04 /CSRwire/ – Research from the Centre for Sustainability and Excellence (CSE) has identified positive links between having a sustainability strategy, goals and reports to having improved financial performance. CSE closely tracks sustainability reporting trends in Canada and the USA. CSE’s Sustainability Reporting Trends in North America 2017, along with last year’s findings on Silicon Valley, represent an ongoing commitment to provide timely and relevant sustainability content for C-level and upper management to corporations around the world.
Findings of the new CSE research were presented for the first time in New York City during CSE’s Global Certified Sustainability Practitioner Program. The encouraging findings were welcomed by VPs from companies and organizations as diverse as Xylem, Coca-Cola, L’Oréal, HD Supply and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Next, CSE will present findings specific to Canada this October in Toronto.
Important insights include:
- most significantly, that companies with the highest sustainability rankings had better financial performance than companies with lower sustainability rankings based on CSRhub ratings, and
- poor adoption of the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs). Only 6.2% of the companies in the study integrated SDGs in their sustainability reports.
Other key trends include:
- Sectors with the highest reporting presence— Energy and Energy Utilities, Financial Services, Food & Beverage, and Mining.
- Most companies publishing a sustainability report are public companies whose global presence makes reporting a necessity to abide by international legislation.
- Most companies use the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines.
- Most reports did not have external assurance.
- Carbon footprint reduction has become a priority with many companies having well-stated and measured goals and targets.
CSE’s Certified Sustainability Practitioner Program (Advanced Edition 2017) offers corporate trainings on these key topics and many others. Click here for agenda. The next 2017 program is in Toronto, October 26-27, where research focused on Canada will be presented. Other North America trainings will be held in San Diego, Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 2017, and Atlanta in 2018.