Online Course – Introduction to Sustainability Reporting

This course is an introduction for people who are thinking about getting into sustainability reporting and want to learn why it’s important. Participants will gain key tips for drafting their first sustainability report. This course is taught in 6 sections, each with its own video, notes, activities and list of follow-up resources. Intro to Reporting is designed to be an introduction for people who are thinking about getting into sustainability reporting, want to get a taste of why it’s an important practice, or hope to simply gain understanding of trends in the industry.


The course assumes you have some basic understanding of sustainability issues: the environmental and social issues facing companies today, like water, waste, climate change, human rights and supply chain. If you aren’t sure what that means, consider taking the Intro to Sustainability course taught by Jennifer Roney first.

If you are planning to become a sustainability reporter for your organization, this course will provide an overview of key topics you need to understand. You’ll also get concrete tips for drafting your first report.

This course is taught in 6 sections, each with its own video, notes, activities and list of follow-up resources. The six sections are:

Section 1: Why Report

We cover popular reasons for producing a sustainability report. We start here because many sustainability reporting initiatives begin with an internal champion – maybe that’s you! We want to give you some resources for making the internal case for your reporting efforts and help you clarify your own reasons for reporting, so that you can move forward efficiently.

Section 2: Current State of Sustainability Reporting

In section 2, we take a look at trends in sustainability overall, as these will help you frame your efforts.

Section 3: Overview of Popular Sustainability Reporting Standards

In section three we offer an overview of many of the popular sustainability reporting standards. The industry is on the insular side and therefore includes a number of acronyms. We’ll introduce you to the leading organizations and resources and explain how they can help you with your reporting efforts.

Section 4: What to Report (Materiality)

Section 4 gets into the meat of your reporting efforts: how to decide what belongs in a sustainability report. We’ll walk you through some of the easier ways to decide and introduce some of the more detailed options for organizations that are further along in their sustainability reporting efforts. We’ll also cover time management, materiality and improving your reporting over time.

Section 5: How to Report (Data Collection)

Section 5 provides some tips on collecting data to make sure that you’re your report is rigorous and complete. It’s possible to produce a high-quality report without a ton of resources and we’ll explain how.

Section 6: Stakeholder Engagement

In the final section, we’ll talk about common stakeholders and understand why we care about what they think. We’ll discuss why and how to integrate them into your reporting process.

Outline

Module 1 Intro to Sustainability Reporting
Unit 1 Part 1: Why Report?
Unit 2 Part 2: Current State of Sustainability Reporting
Unit 3 Part 3: Popular Reporting Standards
Unit 4 Part 4: What to Report (Materiality)
Unit 5 Part 5: How to Report (Data Collection)
Unit 6 Part 6: Stakeholder Engagement
Unit 7 Feedback and Certificate (Intro to Reporting)

Each section includes resources for further study and an activity to help drive home the messages of the section. The course is also filled with tips to share with your colleagues to introduce them to some of the course learnings.

This course is designed to be self-directed and for you to learn at your own pace. Registration of $297 includes all updates for one year.

Click here to register.

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