10 October 2018 
Karel Thomas, Executive Director
This time last week I was packing my bag to head for a conference in Paris. Although that sounds rather glamorous, and the view from Deloitte’s 37th floor offices in the Tour Majunga was spectacular, the conference highlight was hearing from Professor Judge Mervyn King. This gentleman has an impressive cv and an amazing ability to tell a story. The story he told is one which I suspect he tells quite often, but it is one that I could never tire of hearing and you can read it here. If you prefer to hear his soft South African tones, this video, in which he asserts that business as usual is no longer possible, is worth a watch. Professor King is an authority on Corporate Governance and a passionate advocate of Integrated Thinking and Reporting. No matter what your stance on the content and form of narrative reporting by organisations, they have a responsibility to communicate how they are creating value, and all stakeholders deserve better than just pages of dull, but legally necessary, information.
At the same time as our meeting, representatives of The Corporate Reporting Dialogue were also meeting nearby. This is a coalition of several organisations set up to respond to market calls for greater coherence, consistency and comparability between corporate reporting frameworks, standards and related requirements. With so many demands for information from so many regulators and other stakeholders, it is important that the reports themselves lead to value creation rather than more documents that will be read by a few people. If your institution is reporting performance against UN SDGs , you may know there are many initiatives and variations on the theme – hopefully the CRD will help to bring them together through the lens of Integrated Reporting. The message from the meeting I went to is that organisations should assess the SDGs in the light of what is material to their business and report on them, rather than try to tick off every SDG with “something”. If you would like to know more about Integrated Thinking and Reporting, and what materiality means, please get in touch.
