“Gooooaal!” The annual Global Reporting Initiative conference is not the usual setting for the cries of football fans. Yet the august gathering in Amsterdam in May witnessed a truly world-class performance by Brazil. The country claimed each and every award for non-financial reporting issued by the global standards body.

True, it may be a far cry from winning the Fifa trophy, but the clean-sweep shows just how much progress South America’s largest economy has made in corporate sustainability in recent years.

Reporting marks the tip of a growing iceberg. A good sustainability report reflects systemic management as well as a proactive approach to stakeholder engagement and issue identification. It proves that a company makes a priority of performance measurement and target setting. Brazil’s leading companies tick all those boxes.

Upcoming Ethical Corporation conferences & events:
Learn vital anti-corruption, ethics and compliance best practice and strategies at foremost European Summit
2–3 November 2010, London Learn CSR best practice from multinational CEOs and 450 of your peers at Europe’s largest sustainability conference
3–4 May 2011, London Find out how M&S, Alstom, Cadbury, P&G engage their suppliers in sustainability - and saved £££s
9–10 November 2010, London
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