Sustainability Reporting: How to get to smaller firms? Part 1

This is the first time our bloggers will be writing in English. We are doing this effort with the idea of reaching more readers. We have been aware that visitors from different parts of the world watch us. So we are doing this initiative for them. Nevertheless, Spanish will keep being our first writing language.

Reporting sustainability performance is now a common practice for big firms (with revenues above $10 billion). These reports are done annually and normally following the guidelines of GRI (Global Reporting Initiative). Though it is great news that more companies become aware of the importance of corporate sustainability, we wonder how about the small firms? What about the firms in Latin-America? or developing countries? 

The challenge is to engage small companies in keeping track of indicators that will help them improve year after year. Certainly, not all the guidelines of GRI will apply and new indicators should be included. Taking this in mind, GRI created a GRI for SME. This indeed is a great approach to solve this issue. 

Some of the subjects recommended on reporting are:

     Stakeholder engagement 

     Performance according to social, economic and environmental standards

     Short, medium and long term objectives

     Main risks and opportunities

Surely, each case needs to be evaluated and analyzed. Which information is interesting for my stakeholders? Which information will improve my client's trust?