General principles of sustainability reporting

The “general principles” of sustainability reporting can be defined as the basic rules or guidelines that companies need to follow when preparing their sustain-ability reports. They represent foundation for building a useful, clear, and reliable re-port that describe corporate sustainability behaviour and performances. A key principle is materiality. In the context of business sustainability, materiality re-fers to identifying which topics are relevant enough to affect stakeholders. However, a sustainability matter is material depending on the standards companies adopt. The chapter discusses the main definitions of materiality: impact materiality, financial materiality, double materiality, and dynamic materiality. Companies may adopt different sustainability reporting standards in the preparation of their annual or sustainability report. This contrasts with the general goal and principle of comparability. For this reason, interoperability is essential. Interoperability refers to the ability of different reporting frameworks to work together seamlessly, making it easier for companies to report on sustainability issues without having to duplicate their efforts. The chapter discusses in detail the interoperability between ESRS and GRI, and ESRS and ISSB.