Kye Gbangbola - Gold Standard Sustainability Reporting: A Step by Step Guide to Producing Sustainability Reports

This book is dedicated to the memory of our beautiful son, Zane Gbangbola, an angelic figure on earth who passed in Gods grace; a happy, happy boy who lived surrounded in love and exuded it back tenfold.

The story of Zane is that the world was a much richer place with him in it. We know this because of the many children, family, friends, engineering and speed icons, teachers, trainers, neighbours, communities, executives and so on who hold fond, happy memories of him and who miss him so very much.

Our God mourns with us at the passing of our son and journeys alongside us knowing how proud we are to be Zanes parents and to have learnt so much from Zane, who was the St. Georges School Eco Team Founder member, enthusiastic to make the world a better place, where everybody takes their responsibility seriously as custodians to nurture the world for future generations.

Zanes approach to sustatainability was visionary for a child, as he asked his Head Teacher, for whom he had huge regard and respect, about setting up a green team to respond to the world, children, and people in need locally and globally. One of Zanes acts that came to light was a request he made that the school no longer use helium ballons on Ascension Day; he knew that helium is a natural gas to be preserved. It was five years later when children across the world would rise up and implore adults and parliaments in their countries to change rapidly to establish a sustainable world, abate the crisis of extinction and climate change, and turn to a world of renewables, restoration and global protection from those waging war on the planet and polluting it with waste. Zane would have certainly been an instigator on the front line alongside Greta Thunburg, Extinction Rebellion and David Attenborough, and, as parents, we would be proud to back him.

Zane is Hebrew for Gift from God. Thank you for truly beautiful, fantastic and wonderful times and for the love you showed to everybody.

Richard, Andy, Zane, Joe and the Team, all the best at Hakskeen.

A few words of thanks to the TEM Team, GRI, Routledge and a dedication to all children who themselves aspire to a better world for their children in the quest for global change!

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

Corporate reporting in the form of environmental social governance has a few commonly used names; it is part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which we call Common Sense Really. Other names include sustainability reporting or integrated reporting. For many involved in the management and leadership of organisations these are interchangable and increasingly business critical activities undertaken by larger companies and their supply chains. The worlds most commonly used reporting instrument standard is the Global Reporting Initiative Standards, known as the GRI Standards. In some countries up to 90% of organisations that report do so to the GRI Standards. It is ideal as a pathway to generating all types of CSR/sustainability reports.

This book is a step-by-step guide to the practices and processes to produce a sustainability report. This guide is also for stakeholders, investors and asset managers; indeed, anyone who wants to evaluate reports. The book will answer your questions about how any part of the reporting process is carried out, including templates, documents and methodologies, so you can save time and money by not having to reinvent the wheel to get started or improve your reporting.

This is not a book on what the GRI Standards are all about, as the six modules comprising the GRI Universal Standards and the Topic Specific Standards do that admirably; indeed our consultancy, Total Eco Management, offers a globally renowned and awarded GRI Masterclass to executives and post-graduates from around the world on the GRI Standards.

This book is about the journey an organisation can use to deliver a quality corporate sustainability report in response to the many reporting instruments, of which GRI represents the gold standard. The content and quality of a sustainability report distinguishes the reporter; it should be concise, focused on the material topics and tell the story of how strategy, governance, performance and prospects lead to the creation and preservation of short, medium and long-term business value.