The Treasury has published guidance to help public sector organisations meet sustainability reporting requirements, setting out the minimum requirements, some best practice guidance and the underlying principles to be adopted in preparing the information
This guidance is applicable to all central government bodies that fall within the scope of the Greening Government Commitments, that is departments, non-ministerial departments, agencies and non departmental public bodies, which produce annual reports and accounts in accordance with the Government Financial Reporting Manual (FReM), and are therefore required to report on sustainability, unless exempted from doing so.
It does not apply to the devolved governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
The guidance states that the previous requirement for a standalone sustainability report within annual report and accounts has now been removed. Instead, organisations are strongly encouraged to demonstrate through integrated reporting, how sustainability is an essential characteristic within the strategic objectives, operations and policy making, the risks to these and how the risks are being managed.
It goes on to say that additional context should be given to explain the areas of focus of sustainability and those which are the most material to the organisation. This seeks to reduce the focus of meeting onerous disclosure requirements rather than embedding sustainable development in the organisation’s operations.
There is no prescribed proforma for reporting, with the Treasury indicating that organisations should develop their own format to fit their business, but they are reminded that integrated reporting is strongly encouraged.
The reporting format should provide minimum information requirements (including nil returns) and comparisons of data for at least the previous three years (as it becomes available) in the following areas: overall strategy for sustainability; GHG emissions; waste minimisation and management; finite resource consumption; biodiversity action planning; and sustainable procurement.
Where relevant measures have been set, performance against them should be given, where possible or, if performance has already been published elsewhere an overview of performance with a link to the details is acceptable, the Treasury states.
The Public Sector sustainability reporting guidance is here
