In this article, Nick Tapazio makes the case that:

Over the last 20 years, businesses have undergone dramatic change....Economists refer to this shift as the “rise of the intangible economy.” Non-financial and intangible assets such as intellectual property, customer relationships, brand, and human capital now make up a majority a corporation’s net worth...So, what does this move from tangible to intangible value on a company’s balance sheet mean for today’s financial professionals? Quite a bit, actually. Business leaders look toward management accountants to provide a true picture of an organisation’s value.

This is where integrated reporting may help.

The article includes a discussion of integrated reporting adoption around the world as well as links to AICPA resources. 

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Long-time advocates of integrated reporting Bob Eccles and Mike Krzus have just published a paper describing how Mike was able to create a 40-page integrated report from ExxonMobil's other public reporting in just 40 hours. The purpose of the experiment was to:

develop an “Integrated Report Generator Tool (IRGT)” that will use natural language processing and artificial intelligence technologies to produce an integrated report for any listed company in the world. These reports would be freely available. If we are successful in developing such a tool, an interim technology solution will solve the problem of the dearth of integrated reports. Ideally, these freely available integrated reports will encourage companies to produce their own.

Read about their approach and the report that they produced.

This paper was released at the recent IIRC Conference in Tokyo. It was a collaborative project between the AICPA (Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (the Association – the unified voice of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and the American Institute of CPAs), Black Sun and the IIRC. It’s based on a global survey of business leaders, analysing how value creation information is used and understood.

The survey found that executives believe they need better information to deliver future business success. In order to create sustainable value for all stakeholders, executives globally report an interest in taking a longer-term strategic perspective and having more insight into drivers of future performance.

Read the full paper

Read a summary of the report by Sallie Pilot

Sustainable Brands describes integrated reports delivered on line are growing:

Research from Message Group among Europe’s 800 largest companies shows that between 2015 and 2017 the number of businesses publishing financial and extra-financial information in one single integrated report increased by 34 percent, while the number of companies publishing separate sustainability and annual reports decreased by 30 percent. In the same time period, the number of annual reports communicated either partly or fully in HTML format has grown to 41 percent, while the animated interactive PDF format is on its way out.

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IR Magazine's coverage of a recent MSCI paper highlights the prediction: 

‘In 2018, we anticipate that the disclosure movement reaches a tipping point, as investors seek broader data sources that can balance the corporate narrative and yield better signals for understanding the ESG risk landscape actually faced by portfolio companies.’

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In a recent article The Value of Variety in ESG Reporting at Triple Pundit, Julia Wilson of Nielsen explained how her company is dealing with the multitude of reporting standards:

Sure, an abundance of reporting entities means that there’s plenty of excess out there. However, at the heart of external reporting lies the question: what does this diversity in ESG reporting entities afford us today? For starters, there’s value in recognizing the patterns that emerge. The ability to spot trends across multiple frameworks or standards is one way to validate your efforts and reconfirm the strategic areas of greatest importance to your key stakeholder groups...

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It has become a tradition in recent years for Larry Fink CEO of the world's largest investor, BlackRock, to write an open letter to CEO's. This year, the firm took the extra step of posting the letter on its website. 

While the letter does not specifically address integrated reporting, he uses similar language to our movement including statements such as:

• "You publicly articulate your company’s strategic framework for long-term value creation and explicitly affirm that it has been reviewed by your board of directors"
  
• "Your company’s strategy must articulate a path to achieve financial performance. To sustain that performance, however, you must also understand the societal impact of your business as well as the ways that broad, structural trends"
  
• "A company’s ability to manage environmental, social, and governance matters demonstrates the leadership and good governance that is so essential to sustainable growth, which is why we are increasingly integrating these issues into our investment process"
  

Read the full text of the letter