ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 looked at how the information in corporate responsibility reports can be used to answer specific questions that may be of interest to investors. That is, the focus was on situations where the questions are framed by the investor, and the answers are used for engagement or investment research. This chapter takes a different approach. It focuses on whether and how corporate responsibility reports may be used to derive insights into the quality of a company’s management of environmental and social issues. The chapter is divided into two parts. The first relates to corporate responsibility reporting in general, where the aim is to determine whether conclusions about the quality of a company’s management can be derived from the existence of a corporate responsibility report, the scope of the report and the quality of the information reported. The second relates specifically to the assessment of performance and some of the common perils and pitfalls that await the unwary or unprepared report reader.
