Sustainability reporting in public sector organisations: Exploring the relation between the reporting process and organisational change management for sustainability.
Sustainability Reporting has become a key element in different organisations. Although there have been a number of academic publications discussing the adoption of sustainability reports in the public sector, their numbers have been quite low when compared to those focussing on corporate reports. Additionally, there has been little research on the link between sustainability reporting in Public Sector Organisations (PSOs) and Organisational Change Management for Sustainability (OCMS). This paper focuses on the contribution of sustainability reporting to OCMS. A survey was sent to all PSOs that have published at least one sustainability report based on the GRI guidelines. The study provides a critical analysis of the relation between sustainability reporting and OCMS in PSOs, including the drivers for reporting, the impacts on organisation change management, and the role of stakeholders in the process. Despite still lagging in sustainability reporting journey, PSOs are starting to use sustainability reporting as a communication tool, and this could drive organisational changes for sustainability.
Department of Management, University of Bologna, Via Capo di Lucca 34, 40126 Bologna, Italy; CENSE, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Campus da Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal. Electronic address: arsd@fct.unl.pt.
Ana Rita
AR
Domingues
University of Gävle, Kungsbäcksvägen 47, Gävle, Sweden; Organisational Sustainability, Ltd., 40 Machen Place, Cardiff CF11 6EQ, UK.
Rodrigo
R
Lozano
University of Victoria, Gustavson School of Business, Centre for Social and Sustainable Innovation, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Kim
K
Ceulemans
CENSE, Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research, Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Campus da Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
Tomás B
TB
Ramos
D006801:Humans; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D009938:Organizations; D017150:Public Sector
Global Reporting Initiative; Organisational change management for sustainability; Public sector organisations; Sustainability reporting