Ferramenta de avaliação de relatórios de sustentabilidade: um índice para Global Reporting Initiative

Abstract

Over the last decade, sustainability reporting have gained prominence as a growing practice among organizations around the world, accompanied by the increased popularity and adoption of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework. This has opened space for studies on the disclosure practices of organizations, resulting in the creation of evaluation methodologies for sustainability reports generally focused on the detail level of the information disclosed. As the GRI guidelines are now the main reference for the preparation of such reports and from January 2016 onwards his fourth generation is mandatory, an appropriate methodology is necessary. Mainly considering a focus hitherto despised, as the compliance with the GRI framework and the reporting of meaningful content to the stakeholders, which can be a good representative of the disclosure practices and performance of the organization towards sustainability. Thus, the study aims to propose an evaluation tool for sustainability reports according to GRI G4 guidelines, in addition the study also seeks to clarify how the GRI framework is being used by organizations, to identify the methodological weaknesses of the other evaluation methods and to analyze the performance of various organizations in the new tool. Through a Systematic Literature Review, the main evaluation methods were raised and, after analysis, the methodological weaknesses have been identified. Then, we first tried to explain how the GRI framework is being used to monitor and report on organizational sustainable practices. Hence, it was analyzed GRI reports of the automotive sector published between 2010 and 2014. Thirteen reports at national level and 76 reports globally were analyzed. After, a questionnaire was applied to researchers from around the world on issues related to evaluation, reports and sustainability, and the results were used to determine the weight of the GRI elements using the Mudge diagram. Therefore, a quick and easy to use evaluation method based on GRI guidelines has been developed and applied for all the 89 analyzed reports. Additionally, the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and direct comparatives were conducted to identify behavioral patterns in sustainability reporting. The research brings contributions both to the academic area, such as the identification of errors in the reports currently released and present weaknesses in the existing assessment methodologies; and to practice area, once the sustainability report assessment tool is pratical and useful to organizations, stakeholders and the GRI itself.