Managing materiality: a preliminary examination of the adoption of the new GRI G4 guidelines on materiality within the business community

Jones, Peter ORCID: 0000-0002-9566-9393, Comfort, Daphne and Hillier, David (2016) Managing materiality: a preliminary examination of the adoption of the new GRI G4 guidelines on materiality within the business community. Journal of Public Affairs, 16 (3). pp. 222-230. doi:10.1002/pa.1586

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MANAGING MATERIALITY A PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION OF THE ADOPTION OF THE NEW GRI G4 GUIDELINES ON MATERAILITY WITHIN THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY.pdf - Accepted Version
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Abstract

The concept of materiality emerged as the most important element in the new G4 guideline on corporate sustainability reporting launched by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in 2013. This commentary paper offers a preliminary examination of the way in which these new guidelines are being adopted within the business community. The paper begins with a short discussion of the GRI guidelines and the enhanced emphasis on materiality, and the paper draws its empirical material from the first 10 companies listed on Google as having published their sustainability reports in accordance with the G4 guidelines. The findings reveal marked variations in the ways, and the extent to which, the selected companies have initially adopted the GR4 guidelines on materiality and that many of the high-priority material issues identified by these companies are centred on business continuity rather than environmental sustainability issues.

Item Type: Article
Article Type: Article
Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Jones, Peter and Comfort, Daphne and Hillier, David (2015) Managing materiality: a preliminary examination of the adoption of the new GRI G4 guidelines on materiality within the business community. Journal of Public Affairs, 16 (3). pp. 222-230., which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pa.1586. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Corporate sustainability, Environmental sustainability
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > HD60 Social responsibility in business
H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5001 Business
Divisions: Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences
Research Priority Areas: Applied Business & Technology
Depositing User: Anne Pengelly
Date Deposited: 18 May 2016 09:40
Last Modified: 05 Aug 2023 11:27
URI: https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/3508

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