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ACCA Partners with the ESS on Sustainability
The South African chapter of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) is proud to announce that it has entered into a working partnership with Environmental & Sustainability Solutions (ESS) in respect of training on Sustainability Reporting.
Publishing an annual sustainability report has become commonplace for many South African organisations. Many of companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange publish a separate sustainability report (SR) or a sustainability development (SD) section in their annual report. The King III Report stresses the important role and responsibilities management and the board play in publishing an integrated annual report including sustainability aspects such as economic, environmental and social impacts as well as corporate governance.
The Sustainability Reporting Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) are the most widely used framework for sustainability reporting, both globally and in South Africa. "The GRI Guidelines have become the accepted international standard for sustainability reporting" (King III page 110). In order to promote a deepening and widening of sustainability reporting, the GRI, based in Amsterdam, has embarked on a global awareness raising and capacity building drive.
ESS is one of only two certified training providers in South Africa for the GRI certified course on Sustainability Reporting and related modules on Materiality and Stakeholder Engagement. In addition, ESS has developed a workshop on GRI Performance Indicators. ESS has presented its training package to a large number of participants from a variety of background and organisations, both in-house and open courses, in South Africa as well as other African countries.
ACCA recently became the Africa data partner for the GRI. ACCA wants to enhance the skills base for sustainability reporting in South Africa and the rest of Africa. In doing so, the quality of entries for its ACCA Award program for sustainability reports will also be enhanced. Therefore, ACCA endorses the ESS training package on sustainability reporting and will provide exposure of its membership to the training events.