PwC awards first Swiss company for sustainability reporting
The auditing and consulting firm PwC has presented the "Building Public Trust Award" for the fourth time. Since 2016, PwC has been awarding this prize to companies that impress with their particularly transparent and credible reporting on sustainability aspects. The awards were presented yesterday evening at a ceremony in the PwC Tower in Frankfurt.
This year's award for the best integrated report in Germany, which combines sustainability and financial information, goes to Deutsche Bahn. Other winners from Germany include EnBW (category "Leader in Transformation"), BASF and SAP (both category "Continuity in Integrated Reporting").
Swiss companies analyzed for the first time - SGS wins
This year, for the first time, the jury, made up of representatives from business, academia, investors, supervisory boards and a rating agency, also analyzed integrated reports from Switzerland and Austria.
From Switzerland, SGS, a company specializing in inspection, testing, verification and certification services, won the award for the best integrated report nationwide. The company impressed the jury in particular with "its structured and quantitative approach to measuring social value contributions along its capitals," according to the experts.
"Corporate reporting in which financial and non-financial value drivers are disclosed in a comprehensive and integrated manner is increasingly becoming the standard. As current discussions in society, including in Switzerland, show, stakeholders such as the public, investors and analysts now expect this. It is clearly no longer sufficient to simply provide a picture of the financial position as well as the financial performance with the annual report. In particular, there is a need to know the extent to which companies assume social responsibility, are committed to environmental and employee concerns as well as human rights, and how climate change might affect corporate performance. Ultimately, all core elements of comprehensive and value-based corporate governance as well as proper management of risks," comments Stephan Hirschi, PwC Director and expert in CR and Integrated Reporting.
Climate reporting not yet satisfactory
In addition to this year's award winners, there are numerous other companies that impress with their integrated reporting. However, potential for improvement is seen in the implementation of climate reporting.
In the TCFD ("Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures") category, the jury decided not to select a winner this year because, according to the expert panel, "the current level of reporting across the entire study group has room for improvement and does not yet meet stakeholder expectations."
