Business and sustainability

Much of the literature indicates that the business sector has a crucial role to play in global society&s;s journey toward sustainability. In the business environment, company disclosure must focus on non-financial information and on its connections with financial performance. Integrated reporting is a "hybrid practice that spans between the different worlds of financial reporting and sustainability reporting" and aims to providing a true and fair view of firm value and thereby account for sustainability. It makes clearer the linkages between the organization&s;s strategy, governance and financial performance and the social, environmental and economic context within which it operates. One increasingly influential way of thinking about enterprises&s; extended purpose is to conceive of certain types of organizations as social purpose companies that aim to combine social goals with financial sustainability. The shareholder view assumes that the enterprise is an instrument for wealth creation and that this function is its sole social responsibility.