PREPARATION OF ESG-REPORTING ACCORDING TO GRI STANDARDS: THE ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECT

Abstract

Compliance with the principles of sustainable development has long become an integral aspect of the activities of the vast majority of Ukrainian enterprises, so national business is increasingly adapting its economic operations to the demands of society and environmental challenges. The article is devoted to the topical issue of ESG reporting by Ukrainian enterprises, namely, coverage of the environmental aspect of business entities’ activities, the results of which may affect stakeholders’ decisions on cooperation with the enterprise. The Global Reporting Initiative standards were used as the regulatory framework for the preparation of such reports, namely GRI Standards 301 «Materials 2016», 302 «Energy 2016» and 303 «Water and Effluents 2018». For each of these standards, were analyzed the proposed disclosures: we determined what exactly should be described in the ESG report, which environmental aspects of the company's activities should be emphasized, and what additional information the company may provide in the report to form a complete «picture». In addition, the author developed tabular forms of disclosures proposed by GRI, which will ensure the convenience of the company's report preparation and accurate perception of the data presented by users. The author proposes to expand some of the disclosures by reflecting the financial costs incurred by the entity during implementation of environmental initiatives or by calculating the economic benefits achieved. The author substantiates the expediency of reporting in the proposed format – reporting on environmental aspects of activities will allow enterprises not only to demonstrate to stakeholders the level of social responsibility to society, but also to help the management to analyze their weaknesses and strengths for further adaptation of the environmental strategy. It has been determined that the prospect of further research is the formation of disclosures according to other GRI standards and the study of the organization and accounting of the enterprise as one of the sources of information for ESG reports. All the data in the tables are conditional and were used to illustrate the formation of ESG reports.