Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting and Indicators.

Abstract: Over the past few years, the expectations of stakeholders regarding Sustainable Development have strengthened the importance of CSR or Sustainable Development practices in companies. In France, NRE laws and more recently the Grenelle Environment Forum required from companies to disclose and publish information on environmental, social and societal issues. On the international level, the Global Reporting Initiative gives a framework for CSR reporting. Companies tend to improve their CSR policies by setting action plans, objectives, and publishing dedicated reports. Subsequently, to assess their performance, companies need to design specific indicators in order to measure environmental, social and societal information. It is all the more challenging that intangible information, such as biodiversity or human capital, are very difficult to evaluate. Still, when comparing the performance of companies, even in the same sector of activity, it appears that indicators are actually very hetero-geneous and do not allow to perform a proper comparison. This thesis will explore current practices of CSR or Sustainable Development reporting and more specifically the use of indicators in the private sector as well as their limitations and areas for improvement. A mutli-method approach, including a literature review, a case-study and an interview, has been used to perform the research.