Sustainability reporting based on the practical example of Finance in Motion

Academic Paper from the year 2021 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 1, University of Frankfurt (Main), language: English, abstract: This essay is about the Sustainability reporting based on the practical example of Finance in Motion. Corporate Social Responsibility is a concept defined in such diverse ways that Votaw remarked that 'the term is a brilliant one, it means something but not always the same to everyone.' It also changes over time, for instance the ancient Greeks considered integrity to be associated with philanthropy and decency, whilst shareholders of the British East India company rated the business a success, despite the depletion of scarce resources and the use of slave labour in foreign countries, practices perceived as unethical in the 21st century. Contemporary CSR might be associated with socially responsible behaviors, legal responsibility, liability, philanthropy, corporate legitimacy or superior standards of business practice, and social conscience. CSR has also become inextricably linked with sustainability and sustainable development as defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development, and more recently with Environmental Social Governance matters which has a greater focus on legal compliance for firms and investors. The Chartered Finance Institute emphasizes the increasing importance of these non-financial ESG factors to investors selecting growth opportunities but requiring strong evidence of responsible behavior by the firms in which they are prepared to invest. ESG is not a mandatory requirement in financial reporting but has been adopted by many organizations as an integral part of their Annual Report, and disclosed in relation to globally recognized standards, which have been developed for instance the United Nations Social Development Goals, the Global Report Initiative or the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. National sustainability codes have also emerged such as the Deutscher Nachhaltigkeitskodex, German Sustainability Code.