We launched our 360° Value Reporting Experience with our fiscal year 2021 results to demonstrate the multiple ways we create, drive and measure value, both in serving our clients and operating our business. The Reporting Experience brings together, for the first time, all our financial and environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics, progress and performance in one place.
Integrating our ESG and financial reporting required a true partnership across Accenture and with key ecosystem partners. It also required fundamental changes to our core business processes and data-gathering and analytics.
The Reporting Experience involved an unprecedented collaboration across our organization. Functional Accenture teams—including Finance, Investor Relations, Legal, Sustainability, Corporate Citizenship, Human Resources, Global IT, Corporate Services & Sustainability, Marketing and the business—worked together to build the Accenture 360° Value Reporting Experience—a holistic, integrated and interactive digital hub. The Reporting Experience itself is innovative, in addition to the content and approach.
We transformed our approach to reporting by focusing on the information needs of all our stakeholders—our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities. At the same time, we addressed the needs of compliance—to provide clear and transparent disclosure across the various ESG frameworks, demonstrating how we create value for all our stakeholders.
Here’s how we did it:
Started with reporting strategy, leadership and culture
We began with the fundamentals—securing clear direction from our Chair and CEO Julie Sweet and obtaining Accenture board and leadership commitment on our reporting strategy. We also created a consistent, integrated message about how we deliver 360° Value to our stakeholders.
We established a governance model to create a culture of shared success and a steering committee to execute on our reporting strategy. Additionally, we defined key roles and responsibilities across the organization and created a dedicated ESG team to work across the company. Among the team’s many activities, they collaborated to confirm our reporting experience met the needs of all our stakeholders.
Built on a strong ESG foundation
As a long-standing partner of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), we had an opportunity to build on our foundation of ESG reporting. Using our ESG priorities and relevant issues for all our key stakeholders, we advanced our goals and commitments and are implementing targeted actions with enhanced, transparent reporting.
In addition to our ongoing comprehensive United Nations Global Compact: Communication on Progress ESG report, we expanded our ESG reporting for fiscal year 2021 with three additional frameworks: the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB); the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD); and the World Economic Forum International Business Council (WEF IBC) metrics. At the same time, we continued to report against the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards, the United Nations Global Compact’s (UNGC) Ten Principles and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).
Ultimately, our goal is to create 360° Value for all our stakeholders. We measure our success by how well we are achieving this goal.
Raised the bar on data assurance and quality
Because sustainability is a business priority, we consider sustainability metrics as important as financial data. We leveraged the rigor and discipline of our Controllership function to evaluate our data governance over policies, systems, internal controls and assurance. We also aligned data-gathering and reporting timelines and established an integrated and unified reporting experience.
Applied technology
Technology not only enables transformation, it allows companies to facilitate reliable, real-time reporting. At Accenture, we leverage our centralized core systems, including a single global instance of SAP and a single global instance of Workday. We know that “one source of truth” is critical. This single instance best practice enables us to gather data efficiently and it ensures that the data is captured systematically, accurately and in a repeatable way.
Looking ahead, we’re assessing how technology can help better capture workflows and data across multiple sources in a more timely and accurate manner. We’re considering automation of data flows as well as calculation engines for analytics and dashboarding around our priorities, key goals and commitments. To help address our needs, we plan to look to some of our ecosystem partners, including Microsoft, Salesforce and SAP, for solutions.
Designed a new reporting experience
Our team led the creation of the new Accenture 360° Value Reporting Experience, uniquely designed to demonstrate comprehensively the value Accenture is delivering. The launch of this digital reporting hub achieved clear, consistent messaging around all our reporting, heightened the user experience and streamlined the creation and sharing of key data across all our reporting. This new, modular approach to reporting is designed to evolve and grow with Accenture’s business strategy and the transforming global environment for ESG standards.
