Key findings of the survey, which this year included social and sustainability reporting as well as environmental reporting, revealed a host of interesting trends among companies in terms of what is being reported and where common strengths and short failings lie.

The survey, which evaluated global reporting among the world’s 100 largest companies by revenue, found that 62 percent of non-reporting companies are domiciled in the US, while a total of 70 percent of companies in Asia produce reports. Japan was found to be a leader, in terms of the number of companies reporting and quality of reports they produced. Despite the figures, three of the ten best reporters were US companies.

Across the board, there has been a marked increase in the number of companies producing integrated social and environmental reports, as opposed to purely environmental reports, with 26 percent of companies stating their position on human rights and labour practices.

However, while companies are increasingly addressing wider global issues that relate to their industry, there are few reports that assess mobile sources of CO2, such as company fleets, business travel and employee commuting. Of the 75 percent of companies reporting on their global emissions and their efforts to reduce these, only 17 percent of these companies comment on mobile sources of CO2.

Another distinctive trend is that the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) appears to be gaining ground - of the ten leading reporters, almost three quarters say that they have taken the GRI guidelines into consideration when preparing their report. Of all the companies included within the survey, 39 percent made reference to the GRI, whether or not they produced their report in accordance with the GRI's 2002 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

Greater transparency has also been a key area that companies have been focussing on. The number of companies that included independent assurance in their report increased by 10 percent. In this area, Europe came ahead of the pack, with 76 percent of European companies included within the survey having used independent assurance providers. Emerging from the fray of assurance providers is the AA1000 Assurance Standard, which is increasingly recognized as the accepted framework for independent assurance.

Stakeholder engagement is also becoming increasingly popular. However, despite many companies now seeing the benefit of stakeholder engagement as a means of producing more relevant reports – 32 percent actually report on the stakeholder engagement process - not enough companies are putting to use the perspectives and ideas gained from stakeholders to shape their business. While many acknowledge that stakeholder engagement is now necessary, only a few are reporting that they are using engagement to inform decision making in the company.

When it comes to communicating their findings to the public, companies prefer to use the Internet. While the majority of reports are presented as pdf files, some companies such as BP, have done away with pdfs and downloads altogether, preferring to relay results via a dedicated web site. There are concerns about this favored method of communication, in that those who do not have Internet access are excluded. Furthermore, there are concerns about the speed at which the content of Internet-based reports can be altered in that companies are potentially less accountable, when targets or policies can be removed without warning.

The survey also measured how companies prioritized their reporting within their corporate web site. It was found that that 46% of companies had some environmental or social reporting (not necessarily a full global report) less than three clicks away from their home page.

The Benchmark Survey 2003 research project was conducted by consulting companies CSR Network and Cameron-Cole.