Corporate Sustainability and Reporting Frameworks : A Methodology forAligning Various Guides on Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract: The number of sustainability-related reporting frameworks has been increasing throughout the years, as a response to increasing awareness towards the sustainability-related issues from various stakeholders of companies. At the same time, major sustainability-related reporting frameworks publish more guides to support the business on its Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) commitment. For the business, it is challenging to use these guides in harmony to obtain the highest benefit for achieving corporate sustainability targets. The thesis aims to provide a structural approach and a robust alignment methodology, which can be repeatedly utilized over time, on how to establish tailor-made alignment guidances for various corporations, by considering their current specific SDGs reporting challenges and stakeholder expectations by harmonizing Global Reporting Initiative’s and Integrated Reporting’s SDGs guides. The thesis conducts a set of research methods such as case study analysis of telecommunication sector companies, semi-structured interviews with sustainability professionals, content analysis of company reports, and secondary data analysis of various stakeholder engagement forums for the SDGs. The thesis concludes that it is possible to construct a structural alignment approach in six steps, which constitutes identifying the underlying reasons of alignment (Step 1), mapping the external and internal stakeholder views (Step 2), defining the specific SDGs challenges of the companies analyzed (Step 3), examining the segments of corporate sustainability according to the current SDGs challenges of the companies analyzed (Step 4), preparing alignment guidance by defining the contributions of the SDGs guides analyzed, over the challenges examined by the segments of corporate sustainability (Step 5), improving the SDGs commitment performance of the companies analyzed, by applying the tailor-made alignment guidance established for the specific needs (Step 6). Furthermore, the thesis finds out that the case study companies can use all the SDGs guides analyzed to varying degrees, yet, especially SDGs Disclosures and the Analysis of Goals and Targets SDGs guides can support the contemporary needs of case study companies, to address their sustainability strategy, inside-out assessment, and sustainability management accounting & control requirements. As underlying research limitations, the thesis focuses on a specified range of case study samples and reporting frameworks. The thesis adds value to the corporate sustainability literature by analyzing the relationship between the same sector companies and SDG guides of sustainability-related reporting frameworks over an alignment approach and methodology established by the thesis.