One Report: Integrated Reporting for a Sustainable Strategy

by Robert G. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus, Ken Maxon (Narrator)

Winner of the 2010 PROSE Award for Best Business, Finance, & Management Book!"One Report" refers to an emerging trend in business taking place throughout the world where companies are going beyond separate reports for financial and nonfinancial (e.g., corporate social responsibility or sustainability) results and integrating both into a single integrated report. At the same time, they are also leveraging the Internet to provide more detailed results to all of their stakeholders and for improving their level of dialogue and engagement with them. Providing best practice examples from companies around the world, "One Report" shows how integrated reporting adds tremendous value to the company and all of its stakeholders, including shareholders, and also ultimately contributes to a sustainable society.Focuses on the emerging trend of integrated reporting as a top priority for companies, investors, regulators, auditors and civil societyProvides compelling case studies from some of the world's leading companies doing integrated reportingAddresses how companies can move toward One Report and how it can become a keystone of a sustainable strategy for both the company and societyExplains what others-such as analysts, shareholders, other stakeholders, auditors, regulators, legislators, and civil society-need to do to enable the rapid and broad adoption of One Report

Filled with case studies and the most current trends on integrated reporting, this book is an invaluable guidebook on the future of reporting and how this future can lead to a sustainable society.

Genres: Sustainability, Business

Audible Audio

First published February 12, 2010

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, but the information has aged noticeably in a very short space of time due to the rapidly developing nature of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting. The topic is likely to be very dry and not very accessible to non-accountants.

The chapter on the effect the internet will have on corporate reporting is remarkably prescient though. And I enjoyed the decade by decade analysis of UTC's Annual Reports from 1958 to 2008.

Ultimately unless you are really interested in corporate reporting as a discipline it is hard to recommend this book though.

[The Capital Institute · Rating 5 out of 5]

One Report discusses a new trend in business in which companies go beyond reports for financial and nonfinancial results and turn both into a single integrated report. Many also use the Internet to provide more detailed information and higher levels of engagement for their stakeholders. This kind of ‘integrated’ reporting adds value to the company and its stakeholders. Eccles provides several case studies as well as ways in which companies can move toward One Report and make it a foundation for sustainable strategy. The idea behind integrated reporting lies in a web-based approach that make reporting engaging and efficient.
Reviewers say that the endorsement of integrated reporting is a “compelling” case for public and private companies. The creation of what many consider a potentially better corporate reporting system allows for the integration of financial, environmental and social reporting, and a focus on the ability of a company to operate in an environmentally responsible way.

[Esther · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book on reporting is unlikely to be particularly riveting and neither is this one. There is a level of muted enthusiasm from the authors that does communicate but their argument that transparency is the answer to all the world's problems glides over the few steps required to actually make it compelling.

This is not to stay that integrated reporting is not an important development but to argue that it is a panacea to all global ills stretches credulity. A tighter, more focused argument of the benefits of transparency would have strengthened the book.

The book does have some interesting case studies that I hadn't seen elsewhere and is a reasonably good survey of where things weree in terms of integrated reporting at the time the book was published.