SUSTAINABILITY AUDITING AND REPORTING - THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

This paper reviews the experience of 174 of Canada's largest 1500 publ ic and private sector corporations which have begun to incorporate sus tainable development management and reporting as part of their operati ons. Answers are provided to three main questions: Why have they imple mented this initiative! What progress has been made in terms of sustai nability audit practice - frequency, focus, organization of the audit team -, internal communication, and external reporting! And where has, and will the leadership for the sustainability audit movement come fr om as why? Sustainable development auditing and reporting in Canada is voluntary. Practice varies from an elementary level to a sophisticate d integrated assessment of social, environmental, labour, sourcing and trading, and governance issues. The depth of practice and experience in this area depends on several factors, including: corporate commitme nt, the degree of public perception of sector-wide environmental issue s, exposure to legal liability, and the extent of dialogue and transpa rency associated with the auditing process. Differences of opinion abo ut accounting and auditing standards as well as whether all, or parts of, audits should be independent are explored. The sources of data use d for this paper include the EthicScan Corporate 1500 DataBase, The Co rporate Ethics Monitor,(1) various reports prepared by EthicScan Canad a, and the consultancies of both authors.