More companies need to understand sustainability

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

More companies in Sri Lanka need to understand sustainability in its holistic sense and they need to put necessary fundamentals into place to operate in this manner. STING Consultants CEO Ruchi Gunawardena speaking on 'Sustainability Reporting' said at the International Conference 2011 at AAT Sri Lanka yesterday.

He said the Global Reporting Initiative requires that companies declare the level at which they are adopting the guidelines. Fifteen of the reporting companies in Sri Lanka included a declaration on their reporting levels. However, 10 of these were only self-declarations, with no third party confirmation that declared levels were accurate.

Gunawardena said to establish credibility of the information included in reports global companies increasingly include external verification or assurance of their reports.

Eight of the 20 reporting companies in Sri Lanka included external assurance statements in their reports and only four provided solid confirmation that reports accurately represent the company's internal sustainability performance.

He said that reporting is not the end but it is the beginning although many wrongly view sustainability reporting as an end result-done with the objective of winning various awards.

Measuring and reporting on sustainability performance is not a final step, it is a tool that companies should use to facilitate their overall sustainability management process, he said.