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1. The Business Case for Disclosure

• Disclosure demonstrates an organisation's accountability for its impacts on the environment and the community and a long-term commitment towards sustainable development.

• "What gets measured gets managed" - by measuring and collecting data for disclosure, an organisation is equipped to improve their performance in many areas (and drive efficiencies in its operations).

• Using international guidelines or sector-specific frameworks can help you to compare your organisation's performance over time, as well as benchmark against your peers and competitors.

• Stay ahead of legislation, for many companies sustainability disclosure isn't yet mandatory but it is becoming regulated for and is also part of business to business selection criteria.

• When entering new markets sustainability disclosure can assist with government and other stakeholder concerns about an organisations commitments to national development.

• Improved rankings in sustainability indices. With more and more stock exchanges producing sustainability indices, companies can be analysed correctly by disclosing more data.

• Transparency, trust and credibility.

• Organisations' brands can be enhanced by sustainability disclosure.
  
  For more reasons why organisations are advised to integrate CSR into its operations, particularly in Asia, please refer to the LRQA report prepared by CSR Asia 

2. Requirement to report

More and more stock exchanges are asking for sustainability disclosure as part of their listing requirements, adding to the weight of the business case for sustainability disclosure. If you are a listed company, make sure you are up to date with listing requirements. You can find out more from the exchange itself and for an overview of what stock exchanges are doing around the world .

In Singapore

The Singapore Stock Exchange ("SGX") strongly encourages listed and soon-to-list companies to disclose sustainability information. In August 2010, SGX released a policy statement and guidance document about sustainability disclosure .

SGX recommends the use of the GRI framework for sustainability reporting.

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