Whilst the World Economic Forum convened around ‘stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world’, on the 21st January 2020 the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) presented a new model for integrated thinking that encourages long term, sustainable decision-making, which should enable businesses to play their roles as the stakeholders in a sustainable world.

The report, called ‘Integrated Thinking & Strategy: State of Play Report’, has been developed by a group of more than 50 global organizations, including BASF, HSBC, Solvay, Standard Bank, and ING.

Integrated thinking is a multi-capital management approach which enables organizations to deliver their purpose with benefits to their key stakeholders in the long run. It is about creating and preserving value whilst enabling better decision-making based on interconnected, multi-capital information.

The report outlines the challenges businesses face as they drive effective integrated thinking, case studies for how they have met these challenges, and new ideas for how to drive innovation even further.

The IIRC’s Integrated Thinking and Strategy Group is co-chaired by ABN AMRO’s Head of Advisory, Reporting & Engagement Tjeerd Krumpelman, and the World Bank’s Corporate Reporting and Analysis Manager, Zinga Venner.

Of the publication, Tjeerd Krumpelman said:

“Our goal is to enable more organizations to start practicing integrated thinking so they can optimize their ability to create value over the long term.

“To manage a business effectively, information and data from across the organization needs to be understood on an interconnected basis. Management and boards must understand the trade-offs that are made every day across the resources and relationships they draw on to create value in the short, medium and long term. As the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2020 indicates, the long term risks facing businesses are for the first time all environmental. Businesses must adapt to these risks and understand how they interplay with their financial, human and intellectual capitals.

“Integrated thinking is a concept that is still relatively new and constantly developing. As we continue to advance this work throughout 2020, we welcome your feedback on this report.

“The IIRC would like to pay tribute to Christian Heller, Vice President, BASF and Jyoti Banerjee, former Strategic Advisor to the IIRC, who co-chaired this group until August 2019 and were a driving force behind many of the ideas captured within this report.

“Furthermore, we would like to thank our partners The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project, Association of International Certified Public Accountants, Capitals Coalition, Saïd Business School – University of Oxford and the World Bank, as well as Black Sun for the design of the report.”

Source: Integrated Reporting