A4S Reporting Guides and Examples

Connected Reporting – a “how to” guide

“Connected Reporting – A practical guide with worked examples” is a ‘how to’ guide which provides organisations with a simple approach to making the connection between strategic direction, financial performance and environmental and social considerations, with guidance broken down into the following three key steps:

1. Connecting business strategy and sustainability
The identification of material sustainability issues and description of how each of these impact on the organisation’s strategic objectives.

2. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and actions taken
The evaluation of action taken to address each material sustainability issue and the identification of KPIs to measure performance.

3. The Connected Performance Report
A balanced assessment of progress against agreed targets and towards intended outcomes.

The guidance includes three worked examples – for a supermarket, a property investment company and a water and wastewater company. These examples highlight different ways that connected reporting can be applied in practice.

Click here for online copies of the report “Connected Reporting – A practical guide with worked examples”

Alongside the published report we have also launched an interactive version of the ‘how to guide’, which also contains a number of examples of reporting by companies around the world. Click here for the A4S Connected Reporting microsite.

Connected Reporting in practice - a consolidated case study

Aims and purpose

The purpose of this consolidated case study is to assist organisations who are interested in adopting the Connected Reporting Framework (CRF), by providing insight from practitioners who have used the framework for the first time. The case study highlights the main benefits arising from using the framework, as well as identifying some of the key challenges that participants have overcome.

Key findings

The participants in this consolidated case study come from a wide range of industry and public sectors, but despite the diversity, the issues, benefits and challenges have tended to be consistent. In particular, participants noted the following.

They all had a strong desire to link sustainability reporting to financial and strategic reporting in a connected way.

They found that much of the data needed was already available and the additional time needed to collate it, compile and present the Report was relatively short.

They highlighted the identification of current cost savings as a key benefit. In addition they found linking reporting to strategy has heightened awareness of sustainability which has led to increased input of sustainability into the decision-making processes, this may also lead to reduced cost.

They generally noted that sustainability awareness increased as a result of adopting the CRF, both internally at Board and operational level, and externally with investors and customers.

They wished to see continued development on the CRF’s scope of reporting to include other areas of non-financial reporting and a wider concept of sustainability than just environmental matters, as well as enhancing its guidance over the linkage to overall strategy.

Accounting For Sustainability Report

The 2007 Accounting for Sustainability Report sets out the 10 main elements to embed sustainability with case studies, and the connected reporting framework (CRF).

The CRF – Examples from published reports

In the UK, a working group has been established to pilot application of the Connected Reporting Framework within the Public Sector. This working group will develop a framework for sustainability reporting within the public sector that is intended to be rolled out across all central and local government from 2010.

In the private sector, the Connected Reporting Framework is being used, among others, by Aviva, BT, EDF Energy and HSBC. It has also been adopted by HRH’s own Household. Work to develop the Framework beyond the 2007 version is currently underway – click here for more details.

Links to examples of the CRF used in practice

Links to those organisations who have already published reports using the CRF can be found below, please note PDFs may take a few moments to download:

Aviva: