Applying GRI Sustainability Reporting in the Water Sector: Evidences from an Italian Company

Alessia D¡¯Andrea

International Journal of Business Administration, 2017, vol. 8, issue 3, 10-23

Abstract: Sustainability reporting is considered the most applicable and reliable tool for disclosing ?nancial and non-?nancial information to stakeholders and a means for strengthening company credibility. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is the most common standard followed to implement and to develop sustainability reporting. Nevertheless, a few studies have focused on the real adoptability of the standard. The aim of the present study is to illustrate how GRI indicators could be applied and interpreted by managers of a water company to implement sustainability reporting. A single case study is developed to identify which factors could affect the standardized implementation of the G4 guidelines by a water utility company. The research was conducted in an Italian medium-sized enterprise, an entirely publicly owned joint-stock company under the in-house providing rules. Evidence from the case study was gathered through direct observation as well as semi-structured interviews and focus groups with the human resources responsible for the data collection. The research highlights that the process generated an internal validation of the practices carried out by the managers to achieve sustainable development. The case study presented shows that GRI Guidelines adoption is left to interpretation: certain practices and recommendations contained in the G4 implementation manual are, in fact, operationalized within the organization in consideration of the company¡¯s activities and governance. The illustration of the case study may guide practitioners in the GRI implementation process in all sectors, especially in public utilities.

Keywords: strategic alliance; global markets; alliance success; global networks; competitive advantage; alliance failure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijba/article/view/11491/7070 (application/pdf)
http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijba/article/view/11491 (text/html)

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:jfr:ijba11:v:8:y:2017:i:3:p:10-23

DOI: 10.5430/ijba.v8n3p10

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Business Administration is currently edited by Jenny Zhang

More articles in International Journal of Business Administration from International Journal of Business Administration, Sciedu Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jenny Zhang ().