ABSTRACT
There are a number of steps that need to be taken and decisions made before reporters start to prepare their integrated report. These falls into three broad categories: preparation, getting buy in, and developing integrated thinking. Determining material issues for integrated reporting (IR) involves both engaging with stakeholders and engaging reporters' senior management team. Thinking about reporters' business model and discussing it is a good idea regardless of whether they are preparing an integrated report. The International Integrated Reporting Council's Business Model Background Paper for IR provides some frameworks for those discussions. It encourages companies to think of the business model as its 'chosen system of inputs, business activities, outputs and outcomes that aims to create value'. Stakeholders are interested in the impact of business inputs and activities on a range of capitals. This includes the impact on the environment, employees and communities.
