Rewarding transparency: ACCA Sustainability Reporting Awards

Thursday, 14 February 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Working on the concept that businesses perform better by using sustainability reporting as a tool to measure, monitor and report entities’ actions and the impacts those actions have on stakeholders, this milieu is one that has gained momentum each year with the ACCA Sri Lanka Sustainability Awards.

This year, on 20 February, over 50 companies from small to medium to large and extra large, will, as a means of being more transparent and accountable in economic, social and environmental spheres, vie for the coveted awards at the annual awards ceremony organised by ACCA Sri Lanka.

The Chief Guest will be the Country Director of the Asian Development Bank Rita O’Sullivan, while the Guest of Honour will be ACCA’s Executive Director – Markets, Stephen Heathcote. The awards are endorsed by the Ministry of Environment and Global Compact Network Ceylon.

ACCA Sri Lanka has for the last nine years firmly embedded the tenets of transparency and accountability into the reporting process among the corporate and public sectors of Sri Lanka.

Last year, Sri Lanka’s most transparent and accountable business entities were John Keells Holdings, Aitken Spence Hotel Holdings and HDFC Bank, crowned as winners in the large, medium and small sectors respectively, while Janashakthi Insurance earned kudos as a first time entrant.

The runners-up in the three categories were Diesel & Motor Engineering Company, Union Assurance and HNB Assurance, while People’s Leasing Company gained a commendation in the medium category.

ACCA Sri Lanka builds on the fact that sustainability reporting is a more holistic improvement on the long practised environmental reporting practices which began in the 1980s, which this year moved further into transforming the reporting process with emphasis on integrated reporting added to the focus on GRI guidelines and triple bottom line reporting.

The ACCA Sustainability Reporting Awards are held in a number of countries including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the UK and the USA with similar awards largely based on the ACCA criteria existing in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Comprehensiveness, credibility and communication, identifying and rewarding innovative attempts to communicate corporate performance are all aligned to the sustainability concept in order to reward the most transparent and accountable entities.