The aim of the IIRC is to break down all the country and industry barriers through adoption and implementation of integrated reporting; ultimately obtaining a common set of standards that would define IR as the “corporate reporting norm” (IIRC, 2013, p. 1). FEE highlights that regulators should have a crucial role in the evolution of IR, as well as the global standard setters.1
TopIntegrated Reporting At An International Level
In Australia, integrated reporting is still applied on a voluntary basis, though this state has been a promoter of IR from the beginning. A report issued by G100 in 2014 stated that „Australia should not prematurely adopt/mandate integrated reporting. The Framework can be used to inform voluntary reporting initiatives” (G100, 2014)2.
Since 2009, South Africa has a leading role in regulating the area of IR, through King Code of Governance Principles and the King Report on Governance (King III). It represents the first country that included IR on the list of Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) requirements.3 Denmark tried to follow the initiative of South Africa through their Danish Act but failed as its requirements stand for disclosing non-financial information in a manner that lacks integration (Eccles et al., 2012). In 2008, China introduced the mandatory non-financial reporting for those companies listed at Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE). One year earlier there has been a similar approach in Malaysia where the Prime Minister decided that listed firms should report on CSR information (Saleh et al., 2010). However, UK was one step before, issuing the Companies Act in 2006 (Reisberg, 2009). According to Ioannou and Serafein (2014), other countries had some initiatives for regulating non-financial reporting, by introducing the social reports (Netherlands4 and France), or the environmental report (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). France had a spectacular evolution in this sense, from the Nouvelles Regulations Economiques issued in 2001 on ESG- environmental, social, and governance- information to Grenelle II (2012) focused on extra financial information and following an IR approach. Sweden issued in 2007 several guidelines for sustainability reporting, and the US became known in the field of environmental performance reporting through the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (2002). Other similar approaches towards IR were raised by Brazil and their national IR network (one of the first regional networks) and Singapore, where the SAC (Singapore Accountancy Commission) was initiating the research in the field of integrated reporting focusing on value creation (IIRC, 2014).
Starting with 2012, we witness several international coordinated actions for regulating IR. The first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed by IIRC with IFAC in 2012, the same year when the IIRC was launching the Pillot Programme 2012 Yearbook, and an emerging database of integrated reports, while registering feedback from the Investor Network (IIRC, 2014). Two years later, on 4th of February 2014, the IFRS was signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the IIRC, having the main purpose of promoting reporting harmonization, as well as developing common frameworks, guidelines, and standards (IFRS, June 2011; IFRS, 2013).