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International Integrated Reporting Framework

May 26, 2013 |

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Integrated Reporting (<IR>) promotes a more cohesive and efficient approach to corporate reporting and aims to improve the quality of information available to providers of financial capital to enable a more efficient and productive allocation of capital.

The IIRC’s long term vision is a world in which integrated thinking is embedded within mainstream business practice in the public and private sectors, facilitated by<IR> as the corporate reporting norm.

An Integrated Report

The primary purpose of an integrated report is to explain to providers of financial capital how an organization creates value over time. An integrated report benefits all stakeholders interested in an organization’s ability to create value over time, including employees, customers, suppliers, business partners, local communities, legislators, regulators and policy-makers.

The International<IR>  Framework (the Framework) takes a principles-based approach. The intent is to strike an appropriate balance between flexibility and prescription that recognizes the wide variation in individual circumstances of different organizations while enabling a sufficient degree of comparability across organizations to meet relevant information needs. It does not prescribe specific key performance indicators, measurement methods, or the disclosure of individual matters, but does include a small number of requirements that are to be applied before an integrated report can be said to be in accordance with the Framework.

An integrated report may be prepared in response to existing compliance requirements, and may be either a standalone report or be included as a distinguishable, prominent and accessible part of another report or communication. It should include, transitionally on a comply or explain basis, a statement by those charged with governance accepting responsibility for the report.

Fundamental Concepts

An integrated report aims to provide insight about the resources and relationships used and affected by an organization – these are collectively referred to as “the capitals” in this Framework. It also seeks to explain how the organization interacts with the external environment and the capitals to create value over the short, medium and long term.

The capitals are stocks of value that are increased, decreased or transformed through the activities and outputs of the organization. They are categorized in this Framework as financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationship, and natural capital, although organizations preparing an integrated report are not required to adopt this categorization or to structure their report along the lines of the capitals.

The ability of an organization to create value for itself enables financial returns to the providers of financial capital. This is interrelated with the value the organization creates for stakeholders and society at large through a wide range of activities, interactions and relationships. When these are material to the organization’s ability to create value for itself, they are included in the integrated report.

The Framework

The purpose of this Framework is to establish Guiding Principles and Content Elements that govern the overall content of an integrated report, and to explain the fundamental concepts that underpin them. The Framework:

  • Identifies information to be included in an integrated report for use in assessing the organization’s ability to create value; it does not set benchmarks for such things as the quality of an organization’s strategy or the level of its performance
  • Is written primarily in the context of private sector, for-profit companies of any size but it can also be applied, adapted as necessary, by public sector and not-for-profit organizations.

Download the report here.

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