Accountants call for improved UN SDG disclosures

The recommendations are detailed in the report Sustainable Development Goals Disclosure (SDGD) Recommendations, authored by Carol Adams, professor of accounting, with Paul Druckman and Russell Picot, honorary professors at Durham University Business School.

The SDGD Recommendations, developed through consultation with accounting and finance professionals, as well as sustainability experts and academics, offer a new approach for businesses and other organisations to address sustainable development issues.

They attempt to establish a best practice for corporate reporting on the SDGs and enable more effective and standardised reporting and transparency on climate change, social and other environmental impacts.

“There is increasing awareness in both business and investment communities that the health and wellbeing of the planet and its people impact on the longer-term success of business. The SDGs offer an opportunity to collaborate and address this. A change in what and how business is done is essential to the achievement of the SDGs,” Professor Adams said.

“Key to driving change is the requirement for a statement from the board chair that the board accepts responsibility for the SDG Disclosures in the annual report.”

Furthermore, the recommendations call on organisations to consider sustainable development risks and opportunities relevant to their long-term value creation strategy and communicate the actual or potential impacts on achievement of the SDGs.

This will require relevant and material disclosures about the factors that influence long-term value creation (or destruction) for the organisation and society or that have an impact (positive of negative) on the achievement of the SDGs in the annual report.

“To achieve the SDGs, companies and investors will need to move away from mapping existing activities to the goals to a more integrated practice of directing and disclosing on investment activities that create more impact and contribute to progress towards the SDGs,” explained Elizabeth Boggs Davidsen, director at the UNDP.

The SDGD Recommendations are built upon a suggested five-step approach for contributing to the SDGs aligned with long-term value creation, previously developed by Professor Adams and published by the IIRC and ICAS.