Although officially launched in September 2009, the 1st of July 2010 marks the date when the Institute of Directors’ third version of the King Committee’s Report on
Corporate Governance (King III) becomes ‘effective’. This report includes an enhanced chapter on sustainability reporting, and defines specific expectations with respect
to ‘Integrated Sustainability Reporting’ as well as the call for independent third party assurance over sustainability reports. Moreover, 2010 represents the second in what
is likely to become a series of comprehensive research reports to be provided by sustainabilityservices.co.za. Ultimately, the research team reviewed a total of 399 companies’ annual and/or sustainability reports in 2009, testing for compliance to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines, 3rd version (or ‘GRI G3’). This research
afforded them an opportunity to benchmark sustainability reports – GRI-based and otherwise – across all industries and sectors in South Africa, and established a framework for comparison across the 82 reports ultimately identified and ranked as ‘GRI-based reports’. The result was a report that many deemed to be a useful resource document for the further development of sustainability reporting in the country: precisely the intention of the team.