Global SME Reporting Practices on ESG
Dr. Jane Thostrup Jagd, Director Net Zero Finance
In recent years, a number of international organizations have developed high-level guidelines aimed at improving the way small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) report on sustainability. These initiatives have established an important conceptual foundation, but most exist as recommendations or frameworks, and few have been put into practice.
This report aims to take the next step and demonstrate how SMEs across the world are turning these ideas into action. Download the report (pdf, 16mb)
This Global SME Reporting Practice Report on ESG builds on previous initiatives but serves a distinct and complementary role. Instead of proposing yet another framework, it documents real reporting practices from SMEs of different sizes, sectors, and regions. Each example illustrates how companies approach materiality, data collection, and sustainability reporting in ways that are practical and valuable for themselves, their customers, and their investors or lenders.
By presenting these real-life examples, this report aims to bridge the persistent gap between policy ambition and practical implementation, providing an evidence base that can help regulators, investors, and SMEs understand what effective sustainability reporting can look like in practice. It also helps debunk a common myth — that SMEs are unable to produce high-quality and engaging sustainability reports. On the contrary, this report proves that many SMEs create excellent, sometimes even outstanding, disclosures that larger companies could take inspiration from.
Because the examples in this report were identified organically, this collection does not capture all the excellent SME reports that exist — far from it. As not all 70 companies report in distinct ways, we have focused on the most illustrative examples. However, we have provided links to all 70 reports at the end of this publication, so readers can review them in full for themselves.
We hope you find this report inspiring.