iPoint, in partnership with Research NGO Development International (DI), is thrilled to announce the release of a new baseline study evaluating corporate compliance with the new EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) in Austria. The study systematically assesses the degree of non-financial transparency and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance in 2018.
The EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive
The EU NFRD, which is often referred to as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) law, has been in force for more than two years. It applies to the current 28 member states of the European Union, and across Europe, some 6,500 companies are affected. With this new directive, public-interest entities in EU member states no longer only report on their financial basics and forward-looking risk discussion. They now also retrospectively account for their non-financial footprint, including adverse impacts they have on the environment and society. Article 1 of the Directive states that the non-financial disclosure must contain information including: “e. non-financial key performance indicators relevant to the particular business” – a point of departure for a new three-country study commissioned by iPoint.
89 Companies Evaluated on KPIs based on GRI and UN Global Compact
The study applies an ex-post assessment framework premised on more than 60 key performance indicators (KPIs) taken from the reporting frameworks of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and UN Global Compact. This deep-dive into the five required disclosure areas – environmental, social and employee matters, respect for human rights, as well as anti-corruption and bribery matters – reveals the degree to which companies make an effort to demonstrate their environmental and social responsibility.
Top Transparency Scorers
The degree to which companies were found to be transparent was assessed though the application of KPIs, as is required per the EU Directive as well as the national law under study. In Austria, the EU NFRD was scoped to target 89 companies in 2018.
The top five Austrian companies which received the highest transparency scores are:
1. Porr AG
2. ASFiNAG
3. Egger Holzwerkstoffe GmbH
4. VOESTALPINE AG
5. Novomatic AG
Resources
The report may be downloaded – free of charge – from the iPoint website. Evaluated companies may also request their individual scorecards and performance dashboards with a breakdown of their transparency score as well as the overall, sector-specific and company-specific performance scores, from this website.