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Financial services sector
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An Australian Approach
Environment Australia, 2000
ISBN 0 642 54674 6
Public environmental reporting is the communication of environmental performance information by an organisation to its stakeholders. Increasingly, Australian organisations are choosing to publish such reports, some in response to mandatory requirements, others in accordance with emerging business and signatory requirements or changing stakeholder expectations. These changes form part of a paradigm shift towards corporate transparency and public accountability.
This Frameworkfor Public Environmental Reporting was developed following extensive workshop consultation with interested parties in the private and public sectors throughout Australia. It has been developed to further facilitate and encourage voluntary public environmental reporting in Australia, by providing simple and effective guidance at a national level.
Globally, environmental reports are becoming increasingly important as a tool in communicating with and engaging stakeholders. This is partly due to a growing realisation that significant environmental, educational, communication, public relations and commercial benefits can be gained by producing environmental reports. The number of global and Australian organisations producing reports has increased exponentially in the past few years.
As a result of this growing interest a number of international non-government organisations, led by the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), have developed the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to provide a guideline for public reporting. The GRI is constantly being reviewed to accommodate the increasing trend of organisations wishing to report on their environmental as well as social performance.
This Framework has been developed in partnership with CERES and the GRI program to suit Australian organisations and local requirements. Therefore, meeting the requirements of this Framework in producing a Public Environmental Report (PER) will also ensure that an organisation follows global best practice in environmental reporting. It has also been designed so that smaller organisations can choose those elements of the Framework which are relevant to their operations for the purpose of public environmental reporting.
Objectives of the Australian Framework for Public Environmental Reporting: