Sustainability became a buzzword, where organization strive their products be labeled green and environmentally friendly, these organizations use both loud and silent language to declare that they are committed to sustainability. Food industry is one of industry sector that spend large sum of capital on preparing sustainability report (see Mahoney et al., 2013) but still achieve less result then they report on their sustainability reporting. Often times, transparency is an issue when it comes disclosing information such as what is not being possible or went wrong related to sustainability operations on companies sustainability reports, therefore conducting investigative study that seeks on to what extend organizations develop the content they produce on their sustainability report. It is also equally important that to get an overview understanding on the incentives that drive organizations to develop sustainability work.
Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate process that organizations undertake, and contents use to develop sustainable reports, to contribute to the understanding of corporate sustainability reporting by examining how organizations work to achieve sustainable business, surfacing what incentives drive them to develop the content they use while developing their sustainable report.
Explorative qualitative research method was used, and due to the nature of the research, inductive reason was adopted. Both primary and secondary data was collected. Primary data was collected through semi-open qualitative interview, where interviewees allowed to interpret their responses more. The study conducted the interview with the head of sustainability or sustainability managers. Secondary data was collected through organizations official websites, where sustainable financial reports was studied well.
Through this explorative research, the study found that the two organizations that used for this study use different guidelines when developing and preparing their sustainable reports. More specifically, the study found that first company targeted nine of the pillars of global sustainability goals where the second company ambitiously targeted all 17 global sustainability goals.
Furthermore, companies develop sustainability issues related to the environment, anti-corruption and, to some extent, workers' rights in the same way, while distinguishing the way they develop human rights and a social relationship. But both companies want to bring about change at international level through their operations.
The study concludes that, companies possess different goals and driving force in their efforts on sustainability work. These companies seem to focus in their fulfillment of these global sustainability based on their strategic growth and more tailored in markets they operate.