Transparency

Transparency is central to and a necessary condition for Corporate Accountability. Consumers, employees, involved communities and investors all need the right information to make choices, to be able to raise issues with companies or to anticipate the consequences of certain business activities.

Following the example of other countries, the Netherlands should make reporting on Corporate Social Responsibility activities a legal duty for a wide group of companies, with reporting based on international Corporate Accountability guidelines and standards.

As well as reporting on corporate policy, companies should also report on their actual impact on the environment and on their due diligence process. The success of the government’s own Corporate Accountability policy (for example, in terms of sustainable procurement or prescribing Corporate Accountability criteria for government aid) also depends on corporate transparency.

Companies should also become more transparent in other ways – for example, by providing clear information for consumers and for anyone who has been affected by corporate wrongdoing.

The government can improve transparency in a number of ways, as highlighted in the MVO Platform position paper Active government, transparent companies (2013, available in Dutch).