Sustainability Reporting trends in Switzerland, Germany and Austria 2012

SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING IN

SWITZERLAND, GERMANY AND AUSTRIA: STATUS QUO AND TRENDS

Evaluation of the GRI Disclosure Database

August 2013

Sustainability reporting in German speaking

countries: What is the current state?

The number of sustainability reports is steadily growing.

A look into the reports data base, which the Global Reporting Initiative

GRI launched in November 2011, shows, how sustainability reporting in

the German speaking countries has evolved and which organizations

and sectors are reporting their economic, environmental and social

impacts.

2

http://database.globalreporting.org/

Approach

As a Data Partner of the Global Reporting Initiative GRI, BSD

contributes to providing a comprehensive overview of the current status

of sustainability reporting. Region based reports are collected and

analyzed on a monthly basis. The collated information is entered into

the GRI Sustainability Disclosure Database.

For this analysis, BSD Consulting evaluated data from GRI‘s Database

for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

3

http://www.bsdconsulting.com/bsd-files/gri-reports/bersicht_%C3%BCber_Nachhaltigkeitsberichte_(D-A-CH_2013_und_2012).pdf

http://database.globalreporting.org/search

Key Findings

• The importance of sustainability reporting is steadily growing, but the practice is not

yet prevalent.

Organizations with a systematic and transparent communication of their sustainability

performance can still differentiate themselves substantially from the crowd of non-reporters.

• The majority of reports is published by large companies from the private sector. At

the same time, more and more small and medium-sized enterprises are also

publishing sustainability reports.

Also for smaller organizations it can be interesting to highlight their sustainability

performance.

• While GRI has asserted itself as the most prevalent standard for sustainability

reporting, the trend for integrated reporting still waits to breakthrough.

This trend will be crucially influenced by recent innovations such as the new G4 guidelines,

the consultation draft of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and their

improved linkage.

• One third of the GRI-reports published in 2012 achieved the transparency

requirements of application level A.

Application level A is no longer as attractive to differentiate against other reporters – contrary

to the prevalent opinion of many reporters.

4

WHO‘S REPORTING?

More and more sustainability reports are published

every year – but sustainability reporting is not yet

widespread.

6 Data source: Sustainability Disclosure Database of the Global Reporting Initiative GRI, Analysis: BSD Consulting, April 2013

8 6 11 26

38 35 69

86 99

159

247

287

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Nu

mb

er

of re

po

rts

Austria

Germany

Switzerland

Number of sustainability reports in GRI’s Sustainability Disclosure Database

Large SME

Austria 1'000 30'000

Germany 19'000 321'000

Switzerland 3'000 38'000

Comparison: Total number of

companies in these countries

SME: 10 – 250 employees (excl.

micro-entreprises)

More and more small and medium-sized

organizations are reporting.

Reporting organizations by size


11

42 43 51 63

94

163 169

24 22

40

58

0

50

100

150

200

2009 2010 2011 2012 2009 2010 2011 2012 2009 2010 2011 2012

Small and medium-sizedenterprises

Large enterprises (≥ 250 employees or > €43

Mio. turnover)

Multinational enterprises

Nu

mb

er

of re

po

rts

Austria

Germany

Switzerland

The percentage of large companies, who publish a

sustainability report, still remains small.

Large companies (incl. MNEs) who published a sustainability report in 2012 (as

percentage of all large and multinational companies present in the resp. country) 8

Perspective:

In April 2013, the European

Commission adopted a

proposal for a directive

enhancing the transparency

of large companies on social

and environmental matters. 0.0%

0.5%

1.0%

1.5%

2.0%

2.5%

3.0%

Switzerland Germany Austria

Data source: Sustainability Disclosure Database of the Global Reporting Initiative GRI, Analysis: BSD Consulting, April 2013

The majority of reports have been published by

companies from the private sector

Reporting organizations by organization type


43%

30%

8%

4%

3%

2%

2%

7%

Private company, listed

Private company, non-listed

Public institution

State-owned company

Subsidiary

Partnership

Non-profit organization

unassigned

n = 287

Not only listed companies publish a report!

Reporting organizations: listed and non-listed organizations 10

18

58 49

30

69

50

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Austria Germany Switzerland

Nu

mb

er

of

rep

ort

s

Listed Non-listed


Reporting practice of

companies listed at the

Swiss Stock Exchange:

Almost 50% of companies

listed in the Swiss Market

Index SMI published a GRI-

report in 2011 and/or 2012.

For the SPI (Swiss

Performance Index),

companies with GRI-report

account for 20%.

11

The financial services sector is the sector which

publishes the most reports

Top 10 by sectors reporting


0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

Chemicals

Public Agency

Healthcare Products

Tourism/Leisure

Energy

Real Estate

Energy Utilities

Food and Beverage Products

Other

Financial Services

Number of reports 2012

HOW HAVE THE

REPORTING STANDARDS

BEEN APPLIED?

GRI has established itself as the standard for

sustainability reporting.

13

Reports by standard applied

Perspective:

The first reports being

compiled according to

the newest version of

GRI-Guidelines, GRI –

G4 (launched in May

2013) are expected to

be published by the

end of 2013 or the

beginning of 2014.


5%

25%

77%

53%

2% 6%

16% 17%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2011 2012

Nu

mb

er

of re

po

rts

Non-GRI

GRI-referenced

GRI - G3

GRI - G3.1

Non-GRI: report which has not

been compiled based on the

GRI Guidelines.

GRI-Referenced: report

explicitly based on the GRI

Guidelines but excluding a

Content Index.

n (2011) = 247

n (2012) = 287

Only 21% of reporters combine sustainability with

financial reporting and publish so-called integrated

reports.

14

Integrated reports

Perspective: In April, the International

Integrated Reporting Council

(IIRC) published a Consultation

Draft for Integrated Reporting.

We expect integrated reporting

to gain in importance in the next

years.


0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

2009 2010 2011 2012

Nu

mb

er

of re

po

rts

Total of reports

Integrated reports

One third of GRI-reports reached the transparency

requirements of application level A in 2012.

15

0

50

100

150

200

250

2009 2010 2011 2012

Nu

mb

er

of

rep

ort

s

Nicht deklariert

C/C+

B/B+

A/A+

30% 32% 33% 32%

5%

10%

12%

14%

25%

22%

25%

19%

37% 36%

33%

35%

GRI-reports by application level


undeclared

The majority of reporters have the application level

checked by GRI.

16

Application Level Check


50%

4% 12%

26%

60%

65%

24%

35%

23%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2012 2012 2012


Self declaration

GRI Application LevelCheck

Third party check

(n = 42)

(n = 93)

(n = 77)

Note: the high percentage of reports

being checked by a third party for

Austria is due to the fact that Austrian

reporters often combine GRI-Reports

with Environmental EMAS reports.

These reports must be validated by

an environmental verifier who often

also validates the GRI Application

Level.

In Austria, siginificantly more reports are externally

assured than in Germany or Switzerland.

17

External Assurance of GRI Reports


58%

73% 74%

42%

27% 26%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2012 2012 2012


Reports with externalassurance

Reports without externalassurance

(n = 53)

(n = 131)

(n = 103)

Mainly listed companies have their reports externally

assured.

18

Reports with external assurance by sector

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Non-profit organization

Partnership

Subsidiary

Public institution

State-owned company

Private company, non-listed

Private company, listed

Number of reports

Reports with external assurance Reports without external assurance


Sector Supplements are spreading only slowly: In

2012, 65 reports applied such a supplement.

19

Use of sector supplements (reports from sectors, for which a supplement was available)

20112012

0

20

40

60

35 27

12

3 2

1

58

31

12 6 8 2

2 1

1 1 1

Nu

mb

er

of

rep

ort

s

Sector Supplements (date of launch)


BSD CONSULTING: DATA

PARTNER OF GRI

About BSD Consulting

BSD Consulting is a global sustainability consultancy that provides thought leadership

and customized solutions for the management of sustainability issues to international

business and governmental organizations. We support organizations in the development

and implementation of sustainability strategies and the communication about these

efforts. BSD Consulting is furthermore certified training partner of the Global Reporting

Initiative (GRI) and GRI’s Data Partner for Switzerland, Germany and Austria.

As GRI’s Data Partner, BSD Consulting contributes to providing a comprehensive

overview of the current status of sustainability reporting. Region based reports are

collected and analyzed on a monthly basis. The collated information is then entered into

the GRI Sustainability Disclosure Database.

BSD Consulting offers GRI Certified Training Courses which prepare participants in

coordinating a sustainability reporting process. The training courses are held in English,

German, French and Spanish and include the newest GRI-guidelines, G4. Further

information about training courses can be found here.

If your organization has a sustainability report and you would like to add this report to the GRI

Database and the BSD reports list, please contact us.

21

http://www.bsdconsulting.com/bsd-files/gri-reports/bersicht_%C3%BCber_Nachhaltigkeitsberichte_(D-A-CH_2013_und_2012).pdf

http://database.globalreporting.org/search

http://www.bsdconsulting.com/courses/details/gri-certified-training-program

mailto:[email protected]

BSD Switzerland

Hufgasse 17

CH-8008 Zürich

T: +41 44 260 60 23

[email protected]

August 2013

www.bsdconsulting.com

Sustainability Reporting trends in Switzerland, Germany and Austria 2012

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