ABSTRACT
Information has never been more readily available. Technology presents citizens with far greater opportunities to engage with sustainability issues than ever before. Corporations are more actively courting the views of stakeholders online and are also increasingly expected to disclose their performance to interested and affected parties, as well as to contribute towards an ongoing dialogue. Some corporate reports are validated via third-party assurance, but many are not, although statistics do point to an upward trend. Overall, the increasing level of corporate transparency is significant. Sustainability reporting by business—whether at corporate or product level—is only one face of the transparency coin. Beyond rater transparency, the challenges of inconsistency and integrity are both critical. This research was conducted for Wikirate and summarized in Kaleidoscope Futures Transforming corporate accountability: the revolutions of transparency, ratings and social media. Nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) fair especially well as raters, but there are demands for more transparency with how their rating results are achieved.
