Rave reviews on reporting

[Standard Bank Team]

Sustainability practice and reporting has come of age in South Africa and Standard Bank Group has been rated as one of the leaders in both sustainability reports and integrated reports. We placed third in this year’s EY Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards.

In judging the reporting done by the Top 100 JSE0-listed companies, the survey panel looked at the companies’ commitment to transparency and progress in these areas. The survey was undertaken by an independent team of researchers from the College of Accounting at the University of Cape Town.

The third King Report on Governance for South Africa (King Code) recommends that a company integrates financial and so-called non-financial reporting. This means that the annual report to stakeholders must reflect how economic, social and environmental issues impact on the company’s business strategy and, in turn, how these are considered when making business decisions.

This evolution in reporting stems from the growing realisation that environmental and social issues have material costs and impacts and could directly impact a company’s long-term viability. Standard Bank Group’s latest reports are the 2012 Annual Integrated Report and 2012 Sustainability Report (http://standardbank.com/sustainability).

These are the top 10 in this year’s EY Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards:
1. Gold Fields Ltd
2. Truworths International Ltd
3. Standard Bank Group Ltd
4. Royal Bafokeng Platinum Ltd
5. Sasol Ltd
6. Vodacom Group Ltd
7. Illovo Sugar Ltd
8. Nedbank Group Ltd
9. Exxaro Resources Ltd
10. Liberty Holdings Ltd

For more on EY see http://www.ey.com/ZA.