Future outlook Long-term sustainability? For discussions of strategy, the provision of forward-looking information is vital to providing readers with a clear outlook for a company and the likely impact of operations on key stakeholder groups, strategies and future performance. Often, information regarding the anticipated future of the business is included at various points throughout the report, such as the management statements and the market discussion as well as the individual operating reviews. It is essential therefore that it is also included in both the financial and non-financial discussions within the report to show that management understand the market, societal and economic trends and have an expectation of how the company should perform in the medium and long-term. to be inaccurate. The focus in South Africa tends to be specifically on the business and its operations whereas, in the Republic of Korea, the outlook content focuses mainly on wider, global sustainability issues. Similarly, German companies tend to look to the global sustainability challenges for inspiration and use this to provide information about management’s expectations for the future. Although the outlook information is rarely quantitative, the nature of the discussion allows management to guide the reader through their expectations for the group and divisional operations. The Brazilian reports are also performing rather well in the presentation of forward-looking information, with the majority of reports containing some relevant outlook information in the management statements. Disclosing forward-looking information Top countries: South Africa 100% Republic of Korea 100% Europe 82% Brazil 80% Key findings All of the South African and Republic of Korean reports contain a degree of future information with many providing a brief outlook for the company within the management statements. The extent of the information provided of course varies from company to company with some providing simple, boilerplate mentions for the company performance in the coming year, whereas others provide more detailed expectations. There are, however, very few across the sample group that provide any numerical data or targets, obviously cautious of providing guidance that may prove www.blacksunplc.com © Black Sun Plc 2011 25