The three most essential elements of sustainability are social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Social sustainability focuses on subjects such as social equality, human rights, and employee rights, including all stakeholders from blue to white-collared labor forces, customers, and investors. Environmental sustainability concerns corporate operations such as the use of natural resources, greenhouse gas emissions produced, and all other nature-affecting activities. Economic sustainability, on the other hand, aims to achieve company development by taking the future existence and growth into account. As many other fields, sustainability is an interdisciplinary approach; social, environmental, and economic sustainability can only be achieved when they are considered together. Therefore, all areas actively affect and are affected by each other. 

The report demonstrates the sustainability performance of the organization. Sustainability analysis of organizations is carried out through GRI standards set by the Global Reporting Initiative. 

GRI standards are reporting standards that enable all companies, regardless of their size and type, to understand and report on their impact on the economy, environment, and the people. GRI standards allow companies to transparently share the impacts of their activities with all stakeholders. 

GRI standard is the most widely used sustainability reporting standard in the world. It has been taken as a guide by more than 10,000 organizations in more than a hundred countries from 1999 to 2021. As of 2021, 73% of the world's top 250 companies report to GRI standards. 

GRI – Corporate Sustainability Reporting principles are as follows;

 

 

Comparability 
This principle refers to the need to select and report information in a consistent manner so that consumers of the report should be able to analyze changes in the organization’s performance over time (comparing it to itself) and in comparison, to other organizations.

 

Accuracy 
This principle refers to the need for the reported information to be accurate and detailed.

 

Timeliness 
This one requires the organization to report on a regular schedule so that ‘information is available in time’.

 

Clarity 
The information presented in a report should be accessible and understandable.

 

Reliability 
The information gathered in a report should be readily subject to examination and verification.

 

 

Shareholders are the public, the company, suppliers, employees, customers, executives, end-users, and press. 
 

Factors within the scope of economic sustainability are economic performance, market share, indirect effects, supply chain, anti-corruption, and anti-competitive practices.  

 

Key elements of environmental sustainability are material information, recycling, energy consumption, water use, water resources, impact on biological diversity, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon reduction, management of solid and liquid waste, and compliance with environmental legislation.  

 

Social sustainability issues include employees, worker-executive level relationships, education, equality, occupational health and safety, supplier evaluation, human rights, anti-discrimination, unions and collective bargaining, the principle of not employing child labor, anti-forced labor, local people, socio-economic status, customer health and safety.