The Professional Liaison Network and the University of Bristol Law School recently held a collaborative roundtable event, sponsored by OVO Energy in Bristol, to discuss “Tackling the Challenges of Sustainability Reporting”.

The event brought academics, researchers and students from the Law School and the Business School together with a panel of experts from the local business community including Osborne Clarke, PwC, OVO Energy and the Soil Association for a conversation with an audience of sustainability representatives from a wide range of local businesses and public service organisations. The event enabled the university participants to showcase their research and to reflect on first-hand experiences from a range of different commercial sectors. Importantly, the event created opportunities for networking, knowledge exchange and future research collaborations.

Professor Charlotte Villiers from the Law School introduced and chaired a panel discussion framed by a series of thought-provoking presentations offering valuable business and academic insights from the following speakers:

Matthew Germain, Partner and Head of Environment at Osborne Clarke, gave an overview of the main laws and regulatory requirements applicable to sustainability reporting and the companies that must comply.

Sam Preece, ESG Partner at PwC, talked about the impacts of increasingly complex ESG and sustainability reporting regulations and how this is driving transformation in data and technology platform requirements.

Professor Stuart Cooper at University of Bristol Business School presented his research on the concept of “double materiality”.

Kim van Lieshout, Senior Sustainability Manager at OVO Energy, focused on the challenges faced by energy providers with sustainability reporting, such as dealing with outdated methods of quantifying carbon impact and managing changing regulatory goal posts.

Alex Cullen, Commercial and Marketing Director at Soil Association presented a stakeholder perspective on corporate reporting and explored the balance to be made between presenting a good news story and communicating effectively on an organisation’s true sustainability impacts.

Following the panel discussion, the audience split into small groups to discuss a series of questions:

• What are the challenges that your organisation experiences in sustainability reporting?
• How do you navigate the regulation? Do you use a taxonomy to identify sustainable activities?
• What is your main form of sustainability report? How do you tell your stakeholders about your sustainability performance? What do you find most effective as a way of presenting your information?

The discussions revealed some common challenges and observations. Among the challenges identified were how to communicate effectively throughout an organisation and value chain to ensure the best data gathering and reporting, how to evaluate the connection between an organisation’s sustainability and financial performance and how best to engage with stakeholders. The regulatory landscape has produced a complicated and ever-changing set of demands for organisations of all sizes which must be taken seriously as assurance and third-party verification become obligatory. The regulations highlight the importance of sustainability reporting as a process for changing business practices and behaviours towards more sustainable results. As new technology is developed alongside the evolving regulatory requirements, the need to learn and collaborate among organisations and across stakeholder groups is increasingly evident.  

The event was lively and engaging.  Enthusiastic participants expressed a wide range of views and insights. A common theme across the day was the need for mutual learning and collaboration in educational and research-oriented events and activities.

Sustainable business activity is a key interest for academia and for the business community, so it was great to raise awareness of our research in the Law School and the Business School and how it can positively impact business, not least by bringing different stakeholders together for events of this nature. We hope these shared areas of interest can lead to longer term relationships and exciting new research collaborations.