ABSTRACT
The UK water industry is unusual in environmental performance measurement terms in that the regulators have required the creation of considerable amounts of standardised data, and all the main companies in the sector produce corporate environmental reports. This chapter focuses on UK water industry corporate environmental reports (CERs) using the SustainAbilityor United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) benchmarking criteria and then evaluates the results. It analyses the extent to which standardised environmental performance data is utilised in water company CERs. The chapter provides a case study of the relationship between performance and reporting at one specific water company Yorkshire Water. It examines how many of the standardised indicators are to be found within CERs of individual water companies. The chapter also examines the value of the SustainAbility/UNEP approach as a standardised template for developing and comparing water company environmental reports. Much of the literature on environmental performance measurement and benchmarking has been in the context of external environmental reporting.
