Sustainability Reporting being relatively a new concept, what challenges do you foresee in mainstreaming sustainability reporting ?

Since Sustainability Reporting is relatively a new concept, many organizations find it difficult to prepare sustainability reports. Following may be considered as the challenges in mainstreaming sustainability reporting: Awareness: lack of awareness about the emerging concept of sustainability reporting is also a major challenge which the government and corporate governance bodies need to address by arranging the sustainability awareness programme for the Professionals, Board of Directors and Management in the corporate sector, as these are the persons who will drive sustainability reporting initiative for an organisation. The government/regulators should organize such awareness programme jointly with the experts in the field of Sustainability Reporting. Expertise Knowledge: Sustainability Reporting is relatively a new concept in many jurisdictions and organization found it very difficult to prepare a sustainability report in the absence of expert guidance on the subject. The Sustainability Reporting concept is emerging as a good tool to showcase the corporate governance practices of an organisation and this area demand professionals having expert knowledge of sustainability reporting. The professional bodies in various jurisdictions should impart the expert knowledge of sustainability reporting to their members to develop a good cadre of experts in this emerging area of sustainability reporting. Investor Behaviour: It is a recognized principle that investors should consider the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues while making investment decisions. There are specific regulators guidelines for the institutional investor to be vigilant on voting aspects and be concerned about the governance practices of the companies in which they invest. However, the investor behaviour may vary from company to company and sometimes they invest in companies without considering the ESG issues either due to lack of awareness on ESG issues or some other business reasons. It should be made a practice that the investor fund flow to those organization following the good governance including reporting on sustainability aspects. Cost Factor: Many elements of the reporting process can contribute to its cost, including: Time for senior management and other staff to discuss report contents. Developing and implementing data gathering systems Time for gathering and inputting data Implementing new processes, including staff training on data collection Time for checking information Preparing the report itself, involving internal resources (time, capacity building, etc.), and potentially external resources (consultancy, writing/ editing, layout, printing, etc.) External verification or auditing, if applicable.