REFLECTING THE IMPACT ON THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERRITORY IN NON-FINANCIAL REPORTING OF COMPANIES

The article assesses the opportunities and problems of informing about the impact of business on the territory through reporting on sustainable development of enterprises. The topic is timely due to the discussion of the draft standard of sustainable development reporting being devised by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. The purpose of the article is to identify ways to increase the usefulness of sustainability reporting. The article performs content analysis of non-financial reports of companies to disclose information about the impact of business on the local community, evaluates ESG-indicators of companies' activities in the context of their territories of presence; examines international and domestic standards of reporting on sustainable development to determine whether there are recommendations to disclose the territorial component of sustainability impact. The content analysis of non-financial reports of companies presented in the national register of non-financial reports of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs has confirmed that the information in the existing formats of non-financial reports of companies appears to be irrelevant for assessing the impact of business on sustainable development of territories. It has beens noted that the Methodological Recommendations of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation on the preparation of sustainable development reporting, as well as the draft of a similar standard, do not specify the disclosure of indicators significant for the local community in the territories of operation. The article puts forward recommendations for companies to present segmented sustainability reporting by territories of operation and disclose ESG performance indicators in the regional context. In terms of state regulation, it is proposed to supplement domestic standards of non-financial reporting with the principle of “sustainability context”. The concept of “sustainability context” is based on the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative and implies determining the impact on sustainability taking into account local conditions. The proposals to address the lack of information on the company's impact on sustainable development in the territory of their presence aim to help in the development of sustainability reporting standards, as well as in the formation of accounting policies of enterprises in the field of non-financial reporting.