Ensuring the Quality of Information by Creating a Sustainable Framework in the Context of CSR Reporting

Introduction

Nowadays, the permanent development of the business environment is being witnessed, determining a continuous change regarding the needs of the interested parties, with the consequence of shifting the pole of interest from financial information to non-financial information. Companies' perceptions and ways of expressing themselves are the results of a wide variety of approaches, self-regulatory and co-regulatory processes being varied. Improving and monitoring the level of trust of companies and stimulating their degree of social involvement could be achieved by disclosing the key aspects and pillars, which present completeness, relevance, trust, and comprehensibility.

Numerous materials are being issued by various bodies that come to guide the issuer of non-financial information, but without a general framework and a set of standards issued, such as the IFRS referential, unevenness and differences of perception between users are being created. These are aspects that are not under the sign of fair-play if the right to correct, complete and relevant information is being considered. The vast variety of national and sub-national Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies represent, in fact, a major obstacle to comparability. Thus, the need to standardize reporting methods by identifying a common reporting framework appears unavoidable.

On the one hand, the creation of added-value can be suddenly affected by certain catastrophes, epidemics, or crises. Can we distinguish the impact caused by them between the factors with long-term influence or can we talk about economic entities with long-term sustainable activities and resilient activities? Can economic utility be incorporated into social utility? On the other hand, companies are publishing annual reports that are becoming increasingly complex, the attention of organizations being directed towards sustainable and responsible development. But how is this non-financial information presented and measured, given that there is no uniform general reporting framework?

Currently we are witnessing more and more a permanent development of the business environment, determining a continuous change in the needs of the interested parties, with the consequence of shifting the pole of interest from financial information to non-financial information.

At the beginning of this debate, we consider it necessary to focus on the notion of sustainability reporting because behind every concept within the notion of social responsibility of a company, there are many interpretations and expressions, most of the time even contradictory. Corporate social responsibility (hereafter, CSR) is a conceptual dimension with a wide area of interpretation, and its substantiation is only possible over a long-time horizon. The dimensions of corporate governance are: a behavioral one – that regards the interactions, respectively a regulatory one – which includes the legal aspect of these interactions (i.e., namely on regulatory aspects with economic content), to which is added a predictive dimension – that involves the ability of rules and principles of corporate governance to anticipate future developments.

In the current era, we are in the presence of significant technological advances, in a process of globalization in full expansion, by manifesting a globalized market where companies develop individually in specific ways without resorting to global rules. To create more and more wealth than ever before, large companies use multiple practices with a strong social impact. They pollute, sometimes consume irrationally from natural resources, end up in discriminatory circumstances, cause social injustices, ignore local laws in some circumstances, practice corruption to facilitate and intensify certain activities that would otherwise prove socially irresponsible. Consequently, the issue of corporate responsibility became particularly important with the globalization of the markets, when multinational corporations gained new power internationally becoming even stronger than many states, manifesting themselves as the main player, taking over and increasing their responsibilities.