A Convention on Corporate Sustainability Reporting

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Coalition of Institutional Investors urges Governments to agree at Rio+20 to develop a Convention on Corporate Sustainability Reporting. This is consistent with the call for greater corporate transparency in paragraphs 24 and 104 of the Rio+20 Zero Draft.

In our view, there need only be two core elements within such a Convention. First, the Convention would be a commitment by UN member states to develop national regulations, formal codes or listing rules that encourage the integration of material sustainability issues within the annual report of all listed and large private companies. Second, in order to be flexible, it would establish an opt-out for those companies that elect not to prepare such a report: they would be required to explain their rationale to their shareholders, creditors and other stakeholders. In other words, corporate sustainability disclosure would be on a ?report or explain? basis.