Companies Are Sharing More These Days

More companies are disclosing the environmental and social impact of their global business dealings these days, according to The Conference Board.

Specifically, one in three large U.S. companies have adopted the guidelines created by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a non-profit organization that promotes economic sustainability.

The GRI framework calls for companies to report on such things as their “ecological footprint” and their policies governing corporate social responsibility, among other things.

For those of us who don’t work in think-tanks, these terms refer to how much a company pollutes, how well they treat workers and how many foreign government officials they bribe to win contracts (again, among other things).

The Conference Board found that 60% of companies now report having an anti-bribery ethics policy – which is an increase of 21 percentage points over last year.

Around 19% of companies now include a climate change risk disclosure in their annual reports; only 9% did so last year.

Progress is being made.