Sustainability Self-Reporting by Companies for Self-Service Use by the Financial Community: The eco4fin Prototype

Today, stakeholders are demanding more transparency from companies regarding their sustainability. Although companies collect data on sustainability internally and disclose it, data is also collected by third-party providers who disclose the data on their own web-based portals. However, the transfer of original data from companies to data-consuming stakeholders is not seamless. The eco4fin prototype demonstrates a solution-based model. The web-based self-reporting tool for companies combines a central database with some stakeholder-oriented self-service functions that exemplify the needs of data users within the financial community. A demonstration video of the prototype was shown to 31 investors and analysts, who evaluated the prototype in interviews. The findings suggested that the proposed information and communication technology could allow seamless data transfer between reporting companies and data-consuming investors and analysts. In future, the tool could serve as a model of stakeholder-oriented reporting, providing corporate sustainability data to the financial sector, which represents a crucial group of stakeholders. The tool has disruptive potential as it reduces the reporting company’s dependence on third-party providers.