Sustainability has been given a boost as the number of Australian companies who are linking their business activities to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has “improved dramatically” since 2017.
A survey by KPMG which looked at over 5,000 companies in 52 countries found 98% of companies in the ASX 100 were including reporting on these goals, up from 93% in 2017.
The firm said Australian companies had moved from being a “laggard” in 2017 to being in a position where the majority of firms used the Global Reporting Initiative framework.
Some 92% of the companies were including the information in their annual reports, compared to 76% of companies globally.
The UN SDGs covered challenges such as poverty, inequality, climate change and gender equality and the most-common ones considered in Australia were climate action (75% of firms), decent work & growth (69%) and gender equality (63%).
However, Australia fell behind when it came to sustainability reporting frameworks and obtaining external assurance over sustainability information.
Adrian King, global chair of sustainability, climate change and ESG services at KPMG, said: “Since our last survey in 2017, wider stakeholders have begun to expect more of companies, which in turn have sought to prove their social licence to operate by connecting their activities to the SDGs”.
“Both here and globally, climate action and sustainable, inclusive economic growth are the top two goals, but gender equality appears to be a larger concern in Australia than the rest of the world (63% in Australia, compared with 43% globally).
“So does biodiversity – with 30% of ASX 100 reporting SDG 15 – Life on Land as being relevant to their business compared to just 9% internationally. But there is still a long way to go here as only 17% state that biodiversity and nature loss is a risk to their business.”
