As sustainability reporting becomes ever more demanding, companies are increasingly asking how sustainability information can become a strategic asset rather than simply a compliance requirement.
Reporting Matters 2026 explores how organizations can better understand the needs of different audiences, provide decision-useful information and strengthen the connection between reporting, strategy and value creation.
This article and film are the first in a series exploring how sustainability information is created, used and acted upon to unlock greater strategic value.
To explore various perspectives, the article will be followed by expert discussions, a reporthighlighting insights and trends, and a collection of leading practices from this year’s analysis. Together, these resources will help companies make their sustainability reporting more relevant, useful and strategically valuable.
Conversation between John Willis, Senior Director, Corporate Performance & Accountability, WBCSD and Jennifer Crowley, Client Partner for Sustainability, Radley Yeldar
Reframing reporting: Unlocking strategic value through decision-useful information
Reporting matters not simply because people read it, but because the right people use it to make better decisions.
Today’s businesses are navigating an increasingly volatile operating environment shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, economic pressures, accelerating sustainability challenges, evolving regulation, and rapid technological change.
At the same time, sustainability reporting is becoming more regulated, complex and resource intensive.
While the need for consistency, comparability and accountability have been key drivers of regulatory change, complexity and fragmentation persist. This creates inefficiencies in how sustainability information is consolidated, positioned for decision making, and used for resource allocation. It makes it harder to demonstrate the value of reporting and communicate with impact.
As reporting requirements grow, so do questions about its strategic value. Should sustainability reporting be approached as a compliance exercise or a strategic tool for transformation? More than ever, reporting needs a clear business case.
Reporting is only valuable if it informs decisions.
Compliance may be driving the evolution of sustainability reporting, but it is not where reporting creates value. Used strategically, reporting enables organizations to identify priorities, align decision-making, allocate resources, and navigate change from executive levels to operations. It can help strengthen governance, support strategy, and provide the information organizations need to steer through an increasingly complex world and build resilience. External parties use reporting too; clear and transparent reporting enables sustainability factors to be considered in investment, procurement, and partnership decisions.
Great reporting starts with understanding audiences.
Reporting creates value when it provides information that is meaningful, decision-useful, and connected to business outcomes. But that value only exists if that information meets the needs of the people who use it and take decisions.
To realize its strategic value, reporting must reflect the needs of its audiences. But despite the growing investment in sustainability reporting, there is still much to learn about how sustainability information is consumed, which information different users find most valuable and how it influences their decisions.
Different users need different information to take decisions.
Audiences rely on sustainability information in different ways and to inform decisions and outcomes. For example:
- Investors and rating agencies are important users of sustainability information. They use sustainability information to assess risk, governance quality, resilience, and determine investments.
- Boards and senior management rely on sustainability information to inform strategy, determine capital spending and monitor performance.
- Customers and procurement teams increasingly use it to assess suppliers and inform purchasing decisions.
- Employees use it to inform decisions about where they choose to work and build their careers.
Understanding the needs of different users is essential if reporting is to become more relevant, more decision-useful, and ultimately strategically more valuable.
AI is changing how sustainability information is created and used.
Advances in AI are transforming how information is produced, analyzed and interpreted, creating new opportunities – and challenges – for how information is generated, accessed and used.
For example, AI can support businesses in consolidating fragmented sustainability data by automating data collection and validating disparate data sources, by applying predictive modelling and generative tools, streamlining ESG tracking and supply-chain management, and assessing regulatory compliance.
At the same time, AI has become an audience for sustainability information, helping users process and interpret growing volumes of content. However, risks such as hallucinations and generic language must be carefully managed to ensure reporting remains trustworthy and supports effective decision-making.
As sustainability information is produced and consumed in new ways, understanding how different audiences use it—and what makes that information relevant, credible and decision-useful—is increasingly important.
Reporting Matters 2026 will explore what it takes to create decision-useful sustainability information.
Central questions we will seek to answer:
Who uses sustainability information and for what decisions?
What makes sustainability reporting meaningful and decision-useful?
How can reporting better connect strategy, action and long-term value creation?
How is AI changing the way sustainability information is created, consumed and used?
Over the coming months, we’ll bring together strategic discussions, insights, trends and examples of leading practice in reporting to explore these questions from multiple perspectives. Together, these resources will help companies strengthen the relevance, usefulness, and strategic value of their sustainability reporting.
A new chapter for Reporting Matters
Reporting Matters is evolving to reflect a reporting landscape that has significantly shifted.
Building on more than a decade of assessing companies' sustainability reporting, we have asked three key questions:
- How can Reporting Matters remain relevant and valuable for companies?
- How can the use of AI improve consistency and scale?
- How can we communicate insights and actionable guidance more effectively?
This year, we have introduced three important developments to answer those questions:
A streamlined assessment framework
The updated assessment framework reflects developments in sustainability reporting, incorporates stakeholder feedback and places greater emphasis on decision-useful information. Structured around four pillars – Foundations, Execution, Transparency and Experience – the framework assesses how reporting supports accountability, informs action and strengthens long-term value creation. It examines how businesses set sustainability priorities, act on material topics, ensure robust and credible reporting, and communicate sustainability information clearly and effectively.
AI-enabled assessment
AI now supports the assessment and analysis of sustainability disclosures, helping improve consistency, comparability, and scalability. Every assessment continues to combine technology with expert review, human judgement and quality assurance to maintain transparency, credibility and trust in the results.
A modular year-round program
Reporting Matters is evolving beyond a single annual publication into a year-round program of strategic discussions, insights, guidance and engagement moments.
Together, these evolutions are designed to help companies navigate complexity, strengthen the relevance and strategic value of sustainability reporting, and connect disclosure more clearly to strategy, action, and impact.
Where it leads
Highlights
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Insights & Trends
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Strategic discussions
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Examples - Leading practice portfolio
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