Reporting is how parties inside and outside come to understand how the organisation approaches ESG, how it is performing and what it claims. A report gives the position as at its date, normally the end of the financial year, and fairly represents every identified, relevant and prioritised ESG impact, risk and opportunity that can reasonably be expected to bear on the organisation, on the people and communities it affects or may affect, and on the environment; it is built through processes that are risk-based and grounded in evidence so that it conveys a reliable, accurate, understandable and true account of what is material, resting on credible information and sound scientific data. It may sit inside an integrated annual report or stand on its own, and it reads best when connected to the financially relevant information so the user sees the whole position; it aims to be compatible and interoperable with other frameworks and standards; and for transparency it identifies and references its sources, such as conversion factors, standardised data and the methodologies used and where they came from, in a clear and easily reached form. Nine guiding principles underpin it: strategic focus and materiality, with metrics that fit the organisation's strategy, its objectives and its values; an approach that is practicable for its operating model and surroundings, judged on costs and benefits including opportunity cost in financial or other terms; relevance to organisations of every kind, size, sector and location; valid, reliable, evidence-based measures and high-quality data that yield insight for decisions; comparability of metrics across similar organisations and sectors, through benchmarking, baselines, risk and opportunity metrics or comparable analysis; a narrative grounded in materiality that names the impacts that matter to the organisation and to parties inside and outside it; transparency that brings risks and opportunities clearly before governance bodies and interested parties; respect and protection, when related changes are planned and made, for good practice in handling data and information and in communicating and consulting between management and those who represent personnel; and respect for the confidentiality of data without using it as an undue restriction.
The graph holds this control, the 0 it maps to, and the evidence behind each claim, over MCP and REST.