A round up of news from the Corporate Reporting Dialogue and China.
Reporting map
An online “landscape map” to aid integrated reporting has been published by the Corporate Reporting Dialogue, a group formed in 2014 of eight organisations – CDP, Climate Disclosure Standards Board, Financial Accounting Standards Board, Global Reporting Initiative, IFRS, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), ISO and the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board – to improve consistency and comparability between different reporting standards and frameworks. The group says the map aims to bring clarity to how the systems and their requirements can be used together to enhance corporate reporting. “The market is evidently, and quite rightly, confused with the alphabet soup of the reporting landscape,” said Paul Druckman, chief executive at the IIRC. “This map will help clarify integrated reporting in the context of broader reporting requirements.” The map provides a snapshot of each one and consists of three levels: “purpose” gives a brief description of each of the eight standards or frameworks; “scope” shows how each one relates to the six capitals of integrated reporting (financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationships, and natural); and “content” demonstrates how each approach relates to the different elements of integrated reports.
China coal use falls
Coal consumption in China has fallen by almost 8% in the first four months of 2015, compared with the same period in 2014. Carbon dioxide emissions also fell by around 5%, according to calculations by Greenpeace using official figures of China’s industrial output and coal imports. If the reduction continues until the end of the year, it will be the largest recorded year-on-year reduction in coal use and CO2 in any country, Greenpeace said. The decrease may partly be explained by slower economic growth, but is mostly due to government action to reduce coal use, while increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency, the environmental campaign group added.
