Marcella A. Brandão Noronha
Lawyer at Marcos Martins Advogados Associados
How can you add value to your company? On this very relevant point in the corporate world, many arguments and answers could be found. However, it should be emphasized that there is an essential focus for investors and stakeholders, which is knowledge about a company’s activities, management, negative and positive points, among others.
In order to provide more transparency and clarity regarding the information that is part of corporations, institutional groups in various countries, including Brazil, have decided to work together to eliminate excesses, simplify the way information is disclosed and to compile the most relevant company databases. With this initiative, it can be seen that there has been progress in the Brazilian corporate world, which has been resumed with the start of the Integrated Reporting project.
Every year, companies have to disclose financial statements, which refer to their financial and non-financial information. With this focus, Integrated Reporting has created a concept based on control and management, whereby accounting, financial, social responsibility, sustainability and corporate governance information is compiled into a single report. Its concept is basically to bring together a set of relevant information about the company, information that will be disclosed to the market, not as an extra report, but as a simplified, objective and, at the same time, complete source of data about the companies that follow the model defined as the basis of Integrated Reporting.
The Brazilian Integrated Reporting Commission has been working incessantly to arrive at an ideal reporting model that is suited to the Brazilian reality in terms of legislation and market practice, in line with the interests of stakeholders and investors, with the aim of reducing the number of explanatory notes disclosed and increasing the filter of information, in order to reduce excesses and not fail to demonstrate relevant data.
Some basic principles are being adopted for the development of this Integrated Reporting model, namely: (i) strategic focus; (ii) connectivity between information; (iii) receptiveness of the relevant public; (iv) materiality and accuracy; (v) trust and comprehensive inclusion of information; and (vi) comparability and coherence. It should be considered that, with these principles, Integrated Reporting is directly related to a company’s human, financial and intellectual capital.
In view of the above, Integrated Reporting is a great ally of transparency in investor relations and in the quality of the information to be disclosed to the market. Its benefits are manifold, given that companies that adopt (and have already adopted) Integrated Reporting as their basic information disclosure model, which can be small, medium or large companies, whether publicly traded or not, operating in any sector, only have the motivation to make Integrated Reporting part of their management as a requirement, making it possible to show the market what the company is like, how it operates, how it carries out its activities, arousing the interest of potential investors in the company.
In this way, it is clear that Integrated Reporting enables greater organizational capacity by defining relevant issues for companies, thus transforming this information into greater transparency, which consequently encourages investment in the company and adds value to the business.
Bibliography:
CALADO, Luiz Roberto. Opinion: Integrated Reporting: the new era of transparency. Available at: . Accessed on: September 4, 2013.
REPORT SUSTAINABILITY. Available at:
. Accessed on: September 11, 2013.
Meeting of the Brazilian Integrated Reporting Commission on October 16, 2013.
