Welcome to the jungle. The three most dominant sustainability reporting frameworks and their ability to truly inform share- and stakeholders about the sustainability performance of a company (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Business economics - Business Ethics, Corporate Ethics, grade: 1,3, Hamburg School of Business Administration gGmbH, course: Executive Master of Business Administration - Sustainability reporting frameworks for businesses, language: English, abstract: Today, the information demand about the sustainability related performance of companies is higher than ever. Share- as well as stakeholders require transparent information to be able to evaluate and compare companies on the basis of their sustainability performance. The research aim of this thesis is to distinguish the three most dominant reporting frameworks in 2020. Their ability to provide share- and stakeholders with comprehensive insights about the sustainability performance of companies will be analysed. The frameworks considered are GRI, SASB and TCFD. The expectations of share- and stakeholders towards sustainability information have been defined on the basis of four chosen representatives (WWF, EU, BlackRock and Norges Bank Investment Management) alongside the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Their expectations have been compared to the three reporting frameworks, on their ability to meet these. Based on the analysis, the GRI reporting framework shows the most comprehensive format of the three compared frameworks. Compared to SASB and TCFD, GRI is also the only framework that does have a global reach and covers all aspects of the triple bottom line of sustainability reporting. SASB is limited with it¿s focus on the financial filing format for public companies in the U.S. and TCFD with it¿s focus on the financial impact of climate change.