The Multinational Corporation Sustainability Reporting - Dissertation Example

Many consumers depend on sustainability ratings. Many corporations use these standards in assessing their corporate practice. As corporations started issuing glowing sustainability reports, contrary accounts were being issued by environmental groups and other interest groups. Questions of adequacy and believability of these reports have now come to the fore. This study applied quantitative research by distributing questionnaires to the senior executives of the two multinational corporations.This study revealed that sustainability reports became standards of corporate practice that many corporations rely on to assess their sustainability.

Many consumers have also relied on these reports to determine their patronage of corporations. Sustainability standards set by different rating organizations are more or less adequate in measuring sustainability; however, the reports of the corporations revealed gaps in reporting. This showed that they either did not participate in some sustainability activities or they chose to downplay some of their unfavorable corporate practices covering those unreported areas. The sustainability reports of the corporation's BP and Shell are therefore inadequate in showing sustainability activities of corporations.

Based on contrary reports by the media and other interest groups, sustainability reports do not reveal adequate and complete pictures of corporate sustainability practices.The power to build and crush Mother Nature lies in our hands. Our planet can sustain us, but can we sustain our planet? Or would we rather sustain the unstoppable and destructive flow of development? The basic idea behind the concept of sustainability is for humanity to place an emphasis on the achievement of a lasting satisfaction of human needs and for the improvement of the quality of human life in all activities (Liddle, 1993 Chapter 2).

Thus, an essential component of the sustainable development idea is the preservation of currently available resources in such a way that they will continue to provide benefits for future generations while sustaining the present generation.