Summary:

There are a number of reasons why businesses report on their environmental performance to a broad audience including: shareholders, customers, regulators, environmental pressure groups, local communities, employees and suppliers. The key benefits of environmental reporting include:

• Improve profitability through more efficient use of resources and new income generated
• Support product innovation and drive continual improvement
• Improve investor relations
• Attract good quality employees and improve staff morale
• Improve competitiveness e.g. when bidding for contracts
• Reduce corporate risk – and potentially financing costs too
• Minimise risk of regulatory intervention
• Gain “preferred supplier” status
• Generate marketing opportunities
• Provide input into strategic positioning

However environmental reporting can take up valuable staff time – as it is often a new skill that needs to be developed. Data needs to be collected in a robust and repeatable manner and should fairly represent your activities (or you may be accused of 'green washing').

Transparency is an important aspect of environmental reporting. However with this comes the acceptance that competitors will understand more about the reporting organisation's performance.

An excellent place to start is Defra's guidance on environmental measurement and reporting – this focuses on reporting greenhouse gas emissions, but addresses other areas too. To learn more about how to calculate your business's emissions visit our dedicated carbon footprint page & tool .


Further Resources:

• Defra – environmental reporting guidelines