CREDIBLE CLAIM OR CORPORATE SPIN?: A CHECKLIST TO EVALUATE CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY REPORTS

Lidewij van der Ploeg () and Frank Vanclay ()
Additional contact information
Lidewij van der Ploeg: Department of Cultural Geography, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
Frank Vanclay: Department of Cultural Geography, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), 2013, vol. 15, issue 03, 1-21

Abstract: In response to the establishment of universally-accepted principles about sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporations are now producing Sustainability Reports (SRs). Corporations are expected to document their positive and negative impacts on society. However, the veracity of the information in these reports is being questioned. To what extent is it greenwashing? While the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides a framework for reporting, effective mechanisms to evaluate reports are lacking. We propose a Sustainability Reporting Assessment Checklist of 10 questions as a functional tool for use by stakeholders to evaluate the content of SRs. For a demonstration of the effectiveness of the checklist, it is applied to a real but anonymous company. The questions cover: accessibility; readability; the use of an established framework (e.g. GRI); incorporation of CSR and sustainability into long-term strategy; consideration of all relevant aspects of operations; use of evidence to support claims; documented stakeholder engagement; supply chain responsibility; documented impacts on all stakeholders (including vulnerable groups and negatively affected groups); and assurance assessment.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; business and the environment; sustainability reporting guidelines; green washing; sustainability indicators; corporate social performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1464333213500129
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:jeapmx:v:15:y:2013:i:03:n:s1464333213500129

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S1464333213500129

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) is currently edited by Thomas Fischer

More articles in Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().