In numbers the study finds that:

• 499 of the companies in the S&P 500 made at least one sustainability related disclosure, but only 7 integrate financial and sustainability reporting.
• 74%  of the companies quantified at least one sustainability-related initiative financially, though they frequently also mentioned other initiatives without quantification.
• 43% of the companies linked executive compensation to some type of sustainability criteria.

The following topics were most often reported on (in descending order): environmental management, employment, climate change, hazardous waste, product formulations, waste management, water use, ethics, and human rights.

However, although the report shows that disclosure of sustainability information across a wide range of topics per se is commonplace today it also states that:

[I]solated sustainability disclosures are of limited value, both to corporate managements trying to improve the bottom line and to investors trying to gauge risks and opportunities. The challenge today is to connect the dots between sustainability initiatives and corporate earnings and then to quantify the causal relationship. [...] For far too many sustainability factors, across far too many reports, quantification is lacking, leaving managers without tools and investors to wonder how carefully they are being managed.

The report also includes a review of existing regulatory requirements and an overview of current efforts to advance integrated reporting for example by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).

The IRRCI offers a webinar to review the findings and respond to questions regarding the report. It is scheduled for Friday, 3 May 2013. Registration for the webinar is possible through the press release on the IRRCI website.

Please click to download the full report (link to IRRCI website).