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ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) today officially launched Sri Lanka's first award scheme for environmental, social and sustainability reporting. With this award, ACCA will give due recognition to organizations that report and disclose their social, environmental and sustainability information to its stakeholders.

The official launch ceremony took place at the Colombo Plaza with the patronage of Executive Director-Technical, ACCA-UK Roger Adams.

This Environmental, Social and Sustainability Reporting Awards scheme is supported and endorsed by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, World Bank and the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.

ACCA has promoted greater transparency in the reporting of organizations' social and environmental impact for over a decade. ACCA is involved in reporting awards in more than 20 countries throughout Europe, USA, Africa and the Asia Pacific region.

Executive Director (Technical) ACCA-UK Roger Adams said "Judging criteria for this awards scheme comprises completeness, level of credibility and on communication of environmental, social and sustainability issues. We have seen, by emphasising on these elements organisations can significantly improve the quality of information disclosed". Even though environmental and social reporting is purely voluntary in most countries, this could provide tangible benefits in terms of competitive advantage, he said.

ACCA's endeavour for greater transparency is not limited to wards. Since 1990, they have been involved in promoting greater transparency in many ways. First ACCA work closely with a number of relevant organizations, secondly they publish a wide range of technical and research reports and thirdly an e-newsletter, covering sustainability issues.

ACCA has formed the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) a multi stakeholder international group whose mission is to develop global sustainability reporting guidelines. These guidelines provide a universal framework for reporting sustainability issues.

President, ACCA Sri Lanka Ajith Tudawe said "Environmental accountability and sustainability are high on the global business agenda. Companies are under mounting pressure from investors, governments, NGOs and other external stakeholders to demonstrate their efforts to manage the effects of their operations. Which means companies need to become more transparent and accountable in economic, social and environmental fronts". ACCA hopes that the launch of the awards scheme will help to push these issues to the forefront in Sri Lanka. He further added.

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