‘Less is More’ in Non-Financial Reporting Initiatives

By Dr. Georgina Tsagas, Senior Lecturer in Law (Brunel University) and Prof Charlotte Villiers, Professor of Company Law (University of Bristol Law School).

In our paper we shed light on why ‘Less is More’ in the Non-Financial Reporting landscape and explain how an effective decluttering of the non-financial reporting landscape can take place by focusing on improving and widening the scope of the application of the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive.


What is the root cause of the problem at hand?

Knowing ‘the price of everything and the value of nothing’ is more than just a nice turn of phrase that Oscar Wilde had Lord Darlington quip in one of his plays. Projecting into the future, the phrase has spoken volumes on how modern society has drifted away from cultural values and has also highlighted society’s collective failure to place those values on a par with financial ones. Yet in the area of corporations’ non-financial reporting the problem remains that, although in the year 2020 we have reached a common ground on the fact that sustainability is a value worth preserving, there is no rate, no metric, no price nor cost attached to it, which arguably creates chaos for private and public actors alike. Not only do identified stakeholders face the negative consequences, but in both the short term and long term all actors involved and affected corporations, as well as society as a whole, will face the adverse effects of corporations’ unsustainable practices. The fact that sustainability cannot be accounted for in a consistent way is the essence of the problem. Assuming that the chaotic framework for non-financial reporting is part of the problem, we argue that fixing that framework must be part of the solution. (more…)

Edward Colston: Listing Controversy

By Prof Antonia Layard, Professor of Law (University of Bristol Law School)

The toppling of the statue of Edward Colston has made the front pages of newspapers all over the world. “Hooray!” read an email from an Australian friend the next morning, “I’ve just been enjoying reading and viewing the pushing of that vanity statue of a slave trader into Bristol waters and thought of you and my brief stay in Bristol. What a great moment in the history of your city. Took far too long but at last the day arrived”.

As many more now know, Edward Colston (1636-1721) was the son of a prosperous Bristol merchant who after an apprenticeship with the London Mercers’ Company in 1654, established a successful business in London, trading with Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Africa. In 1680 he became a shareholder in the Royal African Company, which had a monopoly on trade with Africa until 1688, after which it received fees from English traders. Colston took a leading role in the Company, serving on several committees, becoming deputy governor in 1689. The RAC is estimated to have transported around 84,000 African men, women and children, who had been traded as slaves in West Africa, to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom 19,000 died on their journey. Thousands who arrived had the initials “RAC” branded on their chests. In 1863, Colston was both elected a free burgess of the city and became a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers, enabling him to trade out of Bristol before towards the end of his life becoming an MP for Bristol (1710-14), despite living in Mortlake in Surrey. (more…)