BM&FBOVESPA Announces First Results of “Report or Explain” Initiative for Sustainability Reporting – Sao Paulo, Brazil – June 18, 2012

During the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, BM&FBOVESPA announced the first results of its “Report or Explain” initiative that encourages companies listed on the exchange to report sustainability-related information to stakeholders.   The press release distributed by BM&FBOVESPA notes the following:

  • “Out of a total of 448 listed companies analyzed, 96 published sustainability reports or similar (21.43%), 107 did not publish but explained why not (23.88%) and 245 did not comment at all (54.69%).
  •  Of the 94 companies in the current portfolio of the Brazil Index – IBrX (which measures the performance of the 100 most traded shares in the BOVESPA Segment in terms of number of trades and traded volume), 49 published a report (52.13%), 22 did not publish but explained why (23.40%) and 23 did not comment at all (24.47%).”

A complete list of companies that published or did not publish a Sustainability Report or Similar is available on the equities section of the BM&FBOVESPA website.

BM&FBOVESPA launched the “Report or Explain” initiative at the end of 2011.

On January 4, 2012 BM&FBOVESPA announced a recommendation that as of 2012 listed companies publish a sustainability report or explain why they do not.  BM&BOVESPA and GRI held training workshops for listed companies on January 17, 19 and 20, 2012 to educate them about sustainability reporting.

By May 30, 2012 each listed company was to disclose whether or not it published a stand-alone sustainability report or included ESG information in the annual report, noting where this data is available.  If such data is not disclosed, the company should explain why not.

The BM&FBOVESPA website notes similar sustainability reporting requirements in Denmark, France, South Africa and Sweden.