Understanding the relationship between organisational attributes, sustainability reporting and financial performance

Abstract

Sustainability Reporting amongst corporates has been growing in prominence with, amongst others, the Principles for Responsible Investment outlined in 2005, the King III Report published in 2010 and International Integrated Reporting framework published in late 2011. The need for analysing the business case for sustainability reporting underpins the motivation for this research which undertook to ascertain the link between certain organisational attributes, sustainability reporting and financial performance. The literature review identified conflicting results in similar studies, and given that this is a fast evolving field of study, this study was deemed necessary. A quantitative research method was used utilising financial and operational data for 200 South African organisations, in an attempt to study the correlation between key organisational attributes, sustainability reporting frameworks, and financial performance. This research adds to the ongoing and dynamic ‘business case for sustainability’ discussion, by studying the links and correlations between the quality of sustainability reporting, specific organisational attributes and key financial performance ratios.