This research surveyed on the 2010 Doe-Jones 30 U.S.

companies to find out if they prepared

sustainability accounting reports. This survey also includes insights about their way of reporting
sustainability issues, adopted guidelines, model of reporting used, and assurance reporting
systems. The survey results are:

1. All the sample companies except AIG issued sustainability accounting reports in 2010 which
represents 96.7% of total sample firms. This ratio is higher than G260(52%) and N100(33%)
companies who prepared separate CR reports in 2005. This information confirms the increasing
tendency of sustainability accounting reporting in reality.
2. Out of the 29 companies that provided sustainability accounting reports, 6 companies also
provided a 3rd party assurance on a part of or the entire report which represents 21% of sample
firms. This ratio is lower than G260 (30%) and N100(33%) companies who issued an assurance
statement along with their CR reports in 2005. However, only the U.S. large firms signals
significantly increasing tendency of assurance practice. And only one company (3%) provided
external party assurance with CR reports.
3. Out of the 29 companies, 19 companies (66%) prepare their reports based on the GRI standards.
As per the “Race to the Top” survey in 2003, 38% of sample firms followed GRI standards which
indicate GRI standards’ dominance in U.S. large companies’ sustainability accounting reports.
4. Out of the 19 companies that followed GRI standards, 6 companies also considered other sets of
sustainability accounting standards like AA1000, the UN Global Impact and industry specified
reporting standards. This indicates that the contemporary single set of sustainability accounting
reporting frameworks might not have completely met the expectations of users’ demands on
reporting frameworks alone. The users are from various industries with unique objectives.
5. 34% of 30 U.S. Dow-Jones companies decided to report based on self-developed reporting
frameworks. Four significant types of reporting methods have been detected which include:
a. Environment, Society and Economics(Triple Bottom Line) or Plant, People and
Profit(Three Pillars)
b. Natural environment, Employees, Communities and Customers
c. Targets and Advancement in sustainability affairs
d. Activities and Fund

These findings raise the concerns regarding the variability in sustainability accounting standards might
result in the reduction of comparability, usefulness and accuracy of sustainability accounting reports.