9:30 AM - 10:00 AM
[2M01] Sustainability Reporting: Quality Concerns of Third-Party Tools and A Call for High-Quality Third-Party Tools to Avoid Greenwashing
Keywords:Sustainability Reporting, Third-Party Tools, Greenwashing, Sustainable Development, SDGs
Global agreements on climate change, biodiversity, plastics, and other sustainability issues require governments and businesses to act. The role of business in the global environmental governance process is also leading to market-driven governance systems. Sustainability Reporting (SR) plays a part in market-driven governance systems, as companies are encouraged to report their commitment to SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and other nonfinancial goals. For the proper functioning of market-driven governance systems, the information shared must be accurate (scientific and objective) and simple to understand. In the paper, we review the sustainability reporting guidelines and associated scientific literature: we analysed publications from sustainability science, industrial ecology, life cycle analysis, and business studies. In this short paper, we present the preliminary findings: reporting agencies have created a framework that depends on third-party certification systems and tools whose quality is not benchmarked as scientific, objective, or policy relevant, and these question the legitimacy of the reporting process and lead to greenwashing. We also note that this is based on the recent criticism of third-party carbon offsets, we call on the third-party tool and SR stand setters to produce high-quality information. High-quality information can increase the supply of projects that meet the goals of SDGs and will help operationalise market-driven governance systems for global environmental governance.
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