London skyline showing the Gherkin building

Scene setting: UK sustainability reporting requirements

There are lots of acronyms flying around in sustainability right now and unless you’ve been living under a rock, chances are you’ve seen a few of them. In this blog post, we’re going to dive into current and upcoming UK sustainability reporting requirements and go back to basics on how to do things the right way. Even if it isn’t mandatory for your business to report right now, chances are, that’ll change in the next few years as more and more come into scope.

Read Time

3 mins

Author

Alex Ryder

What’s sustainability reporting?

Sustainability reporting is all about companies being transparent about their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. It involves sharing what they’re doing to be sustainable and how these efforts impact their operations and society around them. This practice has evolved over the years, becoming more detailed and increasingly, we’re seeing regulatory frameworks coming into place which make reporting a legal requirement for many businesses.

Why should we care?

Transparency and accountability: voluntary (and regulatory) reporting shows that a company is open about its practices, which builds trust.
Stakeholder trust: Investors, customers, supply chain, and employees are increasingly interested in sustainability efforts
Highlight risks and opportunities: regular reporting can highlight potential risks and new opportunities for your business.
Reputation and brand loyalty: businesses known for good ESG practices often have a better reputation and more loyal customers.

Overhead view of colleagues looking at data visualizations around a table.

Getting started with sustainability reporting

Materiality assessment: Identify the most relevant ESG issues for your business.
Stakeholder engagement: Talk to investors, customers, employees, and other stakeholders
Setting goals: Define what you want to achieve with your sustainability efforts and stick to it!
Data collection: Gather the necessary data to support your reporting.

Best practices

Accuracy and reliability: Ensure your data is accurate and trustworthy.
Regular updates: Keep your reports current.
Transparency: Be open and clear about your findings and methodologies.

UK sustainability reporting reqiurements 2024-2

Challenges and how to tackle them

Common challenges:

Knowing what data you need to be collecting.
Collecting accurate data.
Lack of standardised reporting metrics.
Limited resources inhouse.

Solutions:

If you can’t hire expertise inhouse, work with external consultants (like us) to support
Use technology and software to streamline data collection processes.
Regularly review and update your processes.

Conclusion:

Sustainability reporting is not just a trend but a crucial practice for modern businesses. It builds trust, identifies risks, and improves a company’s reputation. There are increasing regulatory requirements both here in the UK and in Europe. Over the next 5 years, more and more businesses will fall into reporting scope, and we know that preparing for that can take time, so we recommend getting started as soon as possible.

We expect to see greater integration of non-financial data and financial data in the future too, showing just how important ESG is. It’s becoming a business-wide necessity, involving cross-department team working and collaboration.

We’ve been working with organisations on their non-financial data since 2006. Get in touch to chat with our experts.

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