Investigating the communication and comparability guidelines for sustainability reporting in JSE-listed companies in the retail sector

Abstract

Sustainability is growing and progressing in importance within the global business environment. Stakeholders' needs have a rise to compare, measure, and rank companies in terms of their sustainability. The comparability of sustainability reports is deemed necessary for evaluating the performance of companies. Stakeholders who use sustainability reports should be able to compare the data reported on economic, environmental, and social performance to the organisation's previous performance, objectives, and, to the greatest extent possible, the performance of other organisations. In doing so, they are looking for dependable methods to compare company data meaningfully and understand the issues that matter to their sustainable growth for improved decision-making. Companies use different guidelines in reporting their sustainability issues. Currently there are no mandatory standardised universal accounting guidelines governing sustainability reporting; however, organisations such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the United Nations Global Compact, the UNEP Finance initiative, the OECD guidelines, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development provide direction to companies with practicable guidance for sustainability reporting. The use of numerous guidelines in the publication of sustainability reports has resulted in different presentations of the sustainability reports, raising the question of whether the information in the sustainability reports is comparable. The study's main objective was to see if the sustainability reports of the top ten selected JSE SRI-listed companies in the retail sector were comparable. To achieve the study's objective, a qualitative study was conducted, which included document analysis of the sustainability reports of the top ten JSE SRI-listed companies in the retail sector. The sample consisted of ten (10) JSE SRI-listed retail companies from 2017 to 2020.The sustainability reports of the top ten listed JSE SRI companies were studied and analysed to determine the comparability of the reports produced between the different companies. The study revealed that there is comparability between the top ten JSE SRI-listed companies in the retail sector. There are similarities in the content produced between the reports and render the reports comparable. It was found that even though the companies ascribe to the use of the different guidelines that report sustainability, the same indicators are reported, therefore allowing comparability. As a result, because these reports addressed and answered similar issues, stakeholders can compare them.