Corporate Integrated Reporting Business & Marketing Essay (Essay Sample)

Corporate Integrated Reporting
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Corporate integrated Reporting
Introduction
For decades, organizations have been recording their annual disclosures in two different reports. One report represents the social and environmental disclosures while the other the financial aspect. However, a debate later emerged on whether these stand-alone reports were costing corporations too much time and resources. Some companies have begun the merger of these two reports to make one integrated report that constitutes the social, environmental and financial disclosures. Corporations argue that the social and environmental reports are becoming too complex and an integration is necessary to make work easier. The idea of integrated reporting was conceived in 2009 when a meeting was conveyed by the Prince of Wales. The meeting was attended by high-end investors and the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) was formed in 2010 as a result. IIRC later became the International Integrated Reporting Council. Integrated reporting has gained grounds in the corporate sector since the incorporation of the council and is expected to continue spreading.
The history of the Social, Environmental and Financial Reporting
Over the past decade, it has become increasingly important for companies to be forthcoming about their role in the society and the environment and the impact in these two areas. However, few managers can articulate a strong belief that their companies have been able to achieve social and environmental responsibility. The concept of social responsibility can be traced back to the ancient history. The first recorded case of this concept was in 1700 BC in ancient Mesopotamia (Rupley, Brown, Marshall, 2017, p.174). However, it evolved over time as the society became more industrialized and modern. The debate of social and environmental responsibility first took place in the 1920s. In 1953, the term social responsibility was introduced after Howard Bowen authored a book titled Social Responsibility of the Businessman.