Voluntary and Mandatory Company Sustainability Reporting: A Comparison of Approaches

Abstract

This paper investigates the adoption of an Enterprise Architecture (EA) for improving the effectiveness of sustainability reporting through facilitating business-IT alignment and the incorporation of sustainability management and reporting into the strategy of a company. The paper highlights significant differences between voluntary and mandatory reporting of companies in South Africa with regards to integrating sustainability practices into their organization. In particular, the approach these companies take with regards to the use of EA for the support of strategic sustainability thinking is investigated. A survey of 28 South African companies was conducted to determine the integration of sustainability and environmental information and reporting into a company’s EA. The results reveal an imbalance in the reporting focus. Economic reporting is still the most dominant type of reporting compared with environmental and social reporting, whilst companies reporting voluntarily seem to be more progressed in terms of integrating environmental information into their EA.