Organizations

Accelerating organizations include entities whose very mission is the adoption of integrated reporting (the IIRC), those whose mission is supportive of and broadly consistent with it (e.g., CDP, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), GRI, and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)), and those whose recommendations carry some weight of authority (e.g., the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the Big Four and other accounting firms, and the professional accounting associations). These organizations speed adoption by lending institutional legitimacy to the concept, encouraging companies to adopt it, and by providing them with frameworks, tools, education, and advice.

While a number of NGOs play key roles, we regard the IIRC as the principal accelerator because its explicit mission is global adoption of integrated reporting through its International <IR> Framework. GRI, SASB, CDSB, and CDP, in its role as Secretariat to the CDSB, support its efforts by pursuing missions that involve developing standards and frameworks for the measurement and reporting of nonfinancial information that can be used in integrated reporting. Complementary to the various reporting programs is the Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings (GISR), whose mission is to accredit sustainability ratings that use as input data to their analytical models information reported according to the standards of the above organizations, as well as other sources. Unlike SASB, both the IIRC and GRI promote standards that are not country-specific. With an appropriate level of collaboration, the difference in jurisdiction and approach between these organizations should be complementary to each other.

The accounting firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young (E&Y), KPMG, and Price-waterhouse Coopers (PwC), and accompanying professional accounting organizations (of which each country has one or more), increase momentum through direct engagement with companies and working with them on materiality. Although the Big Four are primarily concerned with materiality in terms of auditing of financial statements, they and some major accounting associations have addressed it in sustainability and integrated reporting.66 PwC has also produced its own "materiality matrix,"67 which concept is the focus of Chapter 6.

IIRC

On September 11, 2009, Paul Druckman, then Executive Board Chairman of The Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Project69 (A4S), and Ernst Ligteringen, CEO of GRI,70 invited us to a feedback meeting for a draft of our book One Report. At the session, 20 people representing accounting firms and accounting associations, civil society, companies, investors, standard setters, and United Nations' initiatives gathered in London to discuss steps to speed the adoption of integrated reporting. Toward the end of the meeting, a consensus was reached to petition the G20 to call for the creation of an international body to develop an integrated sustainability and financial reporting framework.71

On December 17, 2009, Professor Mervyn King, then Chairman of GRI, delivered remarks at The Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Forum72 titled "The urgent need to establish a connected and integrated reporting framework and the required regulatory and governance response."73 Later that afternoon, Paul Druckman called for the creation of the International Integrated Reporting Committee and of a globally accepted integrated reporting framework. On August 2, 2010, A4S74 and GRI announced the formation of the International Integrated Reporting Committee.75 Known today as the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), the IIRC is a global coalition of regulators, investors, companies, standard setters, the accounting profession, and NGOs currently engaged in the promulgation and refinement of its <IR> Framework.76

Since its formation, the IIRC has worked to crystallize a common meaning for integrated reporting based on a notion of materiality that considers a matter's ability to substantively affect the organization's ability to create value and has published some important documents, such as the <IR> Framework discussed in the previous chapter.77 Other activities encourage adoption through example and learning, such as its "Pilot Programme Business Network,"78 or by generating investor interest, and thus "demand-pull," as through its "Pilot Programme Investor Network."79 The IIRC has also engaged in efforts to educate regulators (such as the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges), standard setters (such as FASB and the IASB), and other important organizations such as the UN Global Compact and the World Bank Group.80 In an effort to ensure mutual understanding, cooperation, and collaboration between the major organizations relevant to integrated reporting, the IIRC has initiated a "Corporate Reporting Dialogue." In 2013, the IIRC signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) to collaborate with other widely recognized organizations that share a mission to develop guidance and standards for corporate disclosure and reporting including CDP/CDSB,81 GISR,82 GRI,83 SASB,84 and a number of other organizations.85

GRI, SASB, CDP, and GISR

Although GRI, SASB, CDP, CDSB, and GISR are all nonprofit organizations with their own missions, those of GRI, CDSB, and SASB are most directly related to integrated reporting. CDP and GISR act as facilitators.