JLL's recently issued 10K includes Integrated Reporting. Here are my favorite parts: 

* Table of capitals, p. 27

* Cross listing of IR framework elements with 10K content, p. 149

* Value creation model, p. 15  &  Strategy, p. 17

Past community guest Hillary Young has a great piece on Medium entitled Why Etsy Is Integrating Our Sustainability Reporting With Our Financial Reporting:

As we continue to integrate impact into the heart of our business, we saw an opportunity to change our reporting to reflect this deeper integration. So now, we have just one report.

She cites three key reasons behind the company has made this move. Read the article

Continuing along with a trend, albeit slowly moving, to require issuers to disclose information beyond their financials, the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Philippines just announced their requirement for listed companies to issue sustainability reports by 2020.  More here.

IIRC's Corporate Reporting Dialogue (CRD) referenced in this article on UN SDGs.  Click here.

Over 100 people from North America attended Bob’s talk on investor-focused reporting at the GRI summit held February 25th in Tempe, AZ. With Laura Nelson from the Antea Group and Sonal Dalal from SASB, the panel explained the growing demand for ESG information and the importance of integrated messaging. 

Bob described how Integrated Reporting is an adaptable reporting tool that aligns strategic thinking, planning, and reporting. Besides improving management decision making, it also gives investors information they need to understand in a holistic way how the companies they invest in create value. He explained IR’s guiding principles of strategic focus & future orientation, connectivity of information, stakeholder relationships, materiality, conciseness, and reliability and completeness among others. He noted that while policy momentum has been lacking in the United States, IR is becoming widely adopted in Japan and the United Kingdom due to government policy recommendations there. He closed by sharing exemplars of best practices in Integrated Reporting, specifically reviewing SAP’s 2017 report and encouraging audience members to check out Intel’s upcoming 2018 report which devotes a page to each type of capital in the IR framework.

This new paper describes the challenge facing companies today:

The Issue — Fragmented Reporting: The many mandatory and voluntary disclosures companies make today have evolved piecemeal over the years without the benefit of an overall framework to connect them. The result is a mosaic of information from which it can be difficult to discern the full scope of factors that drive and explain a company’s performance and illuminate its future prospects for value creation.

The answer? Integrated reporting! Read the paper here

If you haven't seen it already, Novo Nordisk just released their 2018 integrated annual report.  Read the full report here (English version).

This is a link to a piece written by Professor Robert Eccles who many of you may know, and Graham Macmillan, that talks about a range of issues related to investor information needs through the lens of SDGs and sustainable investing.  Integrated reporting is referenced in the article as well.  Read the full article here.

This article, "Counting What Counts: Why Social Accounting Matters," was published online today by Nonprofit Quarterly and talks about what it calls an emerging field of "social accounting."  The article goes on to reference both GRI and the IIRC frameworks, and discusses the "octopus" diagram from the IIRC framework guidance materials.  It also has a section on how integrated reporting can help your organization.  The full text can be read here: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2019/02/11/counting-what-counts-why-social-accounting-matters/.

This is just an FYI as it relates to regulatory oversight of Diversity & Inclusion in the US - both components of human capital (and perhaps social/relationship capital) and potential drivers of intellectual capital and financial capital - by the US SEC. 

On February 6, 2019, the SEC's Corp Fin area released new Compliance & Disclosure Interpretation (CDI) from the SEC under Reg S-K that relates to diversity disclosures among directors etc. 

The new CDI updates apply to both Item 401— Directors, Executive Officers, Promoters and Control Persons and Item 407—Corporate Governance.  Interesting development from a regulator.

Updated SEC Interpretations of Specific Sections in Reg S-K shows up in 2 sections, 116 and 133, as highlighted below.  The interpretation is the same for both questions, and it shows perhaps some new or expanded thinking on the topic.  However, the interpretations both seem to focus only on the tangible, more visible characteristics of diversity (e.g., gender, race,) and does not reference something more inclusive such as diversity of thought (I would not expect the SEC to do so at this time either).

Nevertheless, I thought this was an interesting development.  It may not move mountains, but it gets diversity (and hopefully inclusion more explicitly) onto radar screens of issuers in the US.  The state of California already mandated recently that women must be on board of directors, which paved the way for considerations at the federal level.  This past week, legislation was also introduced in both houses of Congress on similar diversity topics.  Diversity and Inclusion, both contributors to human capital and others potentially, are not coming off the back burner and to the forefront increasingly.  This is a good indicator of what may come.  More importantly, I am thinking ahead to what may become best practice and the 'right thing to do' among corporates, regardless of the existence of regulatory mandates or laws.

Here are the details below from the SEC interpretations:

Section 116. Item 401 — Directors, Executive Officers, Promoters and Control Persons

Question 116.11

Question: In connection with preparing Item 401 disclosure relating to director qualifications, certain board members or nominees have provided for inclusion in the company's disclosure certain self-identified specific diversity characteristics, such as their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or cultural background. What disclosure of self-identified diversity characteristics is required under Item 401 or, with respect to nominees, under Item 407?

Answer: Item 401(e) requires a brief discussion of the specific experience, qualifications, attributes, or skills that led to the conclusion that a person should serve as a director. Item 407(c)(2)(vi) requires a description of how a board implements any policies it follows with regard to the consideration of diversity in identifying director nominees. To the extent a board or nominating committee in determining the specific experience, qualifications, attributes, or skills of an individual for board membership has considered the self-identified diversity characteristics referred to above (e.g., race, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or cultural background) of an individual who has consented to the company's disclosure of those characteristics, we would expect that the company's discussion required by Item 401 would include, but not necessarily be limited to, identifying those characteristics and how they were considered.Similarly, in these circumstances, we would expect any description of diversity policies followed by the company under Item 407 would include a discussion of how the company considers the self-identified diversity attributes of nominees as well as any other qualifications its diversity policy takes into account, such as diverse work experiences, military service, or socio-economic or demographic characteristics. [February 6, 2019]

Section 133. Item 407 — Corporate Governance

Question 133.13

Question: In connection with preparing Item 401 disclosure relating to director qualifications, certain board members or nominees have provided for inclusion in the company's disclosure certain self-identified specific diversity characteristics, such as their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or cultural background. What disclosure of self-identified diversity characteristics is required under Item 401 or, with respect to nominees, under Item 407?

Answer: Item 401(e) requires a brief discussion of the specific experience, qualifications, attributes, or skills that led to the conclusion that a person should serve as a director. Item 407(c)(2)(vi) requires a description of how a board implements any policies it follows with regard to the consideration of diversity in identifying director nominees. To the extent a board or nominating committee in determining the specific experience, qualifications, attributes, or skills of an individual for board membership has considered the self-identified diversity characteristics referred to above (e.g., race, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or cultural background) of an individual who has consented to the company's disclosure of those characteristics, we would expect that the company's discussion required by Item 401 would include, but not necessarily be limited to, identifying those characteristics and how they were considered. Similarly, in these circumstances, we would expect any description of diversity policies followed by the company under Item 407 would include a discussion of how the company considers the self-identified diversity attributes of nominees as well as any other qualifications its diversity policy takes into account, such as diverse work experiences, military service, or socio-economic or demographic characteristics. [February 6, 2019]