1 June 2012: Achim Steiner, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director, issued an op-ed together with David Pitt-Watson, Chair of the Finance Initiative’s (UNEP FI) Investment Commission, and others, on the need for a global policy framework on corporate sustainability reporting. They argue that despite existing guidelines and standards, there is a need to level the playing field further with a global agreement on reporting.

According to the editorial, governments meeting at the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) should consider committing to corporate sustainability reporting. The editorial argues that, while plentiful, existing voluntary arrangements have “hit their limits.” It underscores that a global policy framework on corporate sustainability reporting is essential to deliver “the basic information, transparency and comparability” required to fast track a transition to a green economy.

The authors state that existing voluntary efforts, such as the UNEP-founded Global Reporting Initiative, the UN Global Compact, the Carbon Disclosure Project and the International Integrated Reporting Council, provide an adequate underpinning to a potential global policy framework. They suggest that such a framework could contain flexible provisions allowing governments to implement it through new laws, existing company laws, or listing authorities such as national stock exchanges.

The editorial notes rapidly growing momentum among investors, suggesting that evolving corporate sustainability to a legally-grounded level, in the form of a future convention, has the potential to deliver powerful and positive environmental, social and economic outcomes, and should be on world leaders’ radars at Rio+20. [Op-Ed] [UNEP FI Website]