Materiality in corporate sustainability reporting within UK retailing

Jones, Peter ORCID: 0000-0002-9566-9393, Comfort, Daphne and Hillier, David (2016) Materiality in corporate sustainability reporting within UK retailing. Journal of Public Affairs, 16 (1). pp. 81-90. doi:10.1002/pa.1570

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Abstract

The concept of materiality is attracting increasing attention in corporate sustainability reporting. This paper offers a preliminary examination of the extent to which the UK's leading retailers are currently addressing materiality in their sustainability reports and offers some wider reflections on the ways retailers are embracing materiality. The paper begins with a short discussion of the concept of materiality and on its determination and the paper draws its empirical material from the most recent sustainability reports posted on the Internet by the UK's top ten retailers. The findings reveal that there are significant variations in the extent to which the UK's leading retailers are embracing materiality and that there is no evidence of a sector specific approach to materiality within the UK retail community. More generally the authors argue that the methods currently being used to determine materiality are flawed and that retailers seem likely to continue to face challenges in looking to reconcile the relationships between executive management teams, investors and a wide range of stakeholders in operationalising the concept of materiality. The paper provides an accessible review of the extent to which the UK's leading retailers are currently embracing materiality as part of the sustainability reporting process and as such it will interest academics, students and practitioners interested in retailing and corporate sustainability.

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 (2016) Materiality in corporate sustainability reporting within UK retailing. Journal of Public Affairs, 16 (1). pp. 81-90., which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pa.1570. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. Correction added on February 04, 2016, after initial online publication. A duplicate of this article was published under the DOI: 10.1002/pa.1578. This duplicate has now been deleted and its DOI redirected to this version of the article.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Materiality; Sustainability; UK retailers
Subjects:	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 10:24
Last Modified:	05 Aug 2023 11:37
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/3509

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