Co-operative Sustainability Performance Measurement: The Role of the Co-op Principles and UN Sustainability Development Goals in the Reporting Model

This research begins with the question: can co-operative organizations make use of the Principles to develop a measurement and reporting model that addresses the identified shortcomings of current practice relating to sustainability reporting? To answer this question, the research objective is threefold: one, to help identify the causes of the shortcomings in current co-operative sustainability reporting practice; two, to assess how best to address those causes; and three, to propose a more effective model of sustainability measurement and reporting, which can be developed with a specific emphasis on making reference to the UN SDGs as a global benchmark for co-operatives. The study identified shortcomings in the current reporting models employed and found support for the link between the Principles and sustainability efforts, including activities relating to the SDGs. We identified a framework of stratification of stakeholder interests, mission and organizational activity and impact; and determined a conceptual model of values alignment and impact measurement (based on using the Cooperative Principles to guide the reporting of organizational performance) for co-operative organizations. The model will guide the development of appropriate metrics related to social and environmental value, in addition to economic value, for an organization and thereby provide more meaningful information to stakeholders. This study is important as it begins to address the lack of co-operative specific social, environmental and cooperative measures and reporting and provides assistance to co-operative organizations that are looking to report on how they are helping to meet the UN SDGs. The paper contributes to the literature by introducing a comprehensive model that can be further developed for implementation and evaluated for effectiveness in future research. Nik Rowlston holds a CA accounting designation from the UK and is a graduate of the University of Nottingham. He is a Hedge Fund Administrator and a part-time instructor in Financial Instruments at Saint Mary’s University (SMU). Nik is working with SMU’s Centre of Excellence for Accounting and Reporting in Co-operatives (CEARC) on performance frameworks for co-operatives. Fiona Duguid has a PhD from University of Toronto in Adult Education and Community Development. She conducts research focusing on co-operatives, social economy, sustainability and community economic development. She is a Research Fellow with CEARC, SMU where she co-leads the Co-operative Performance Index project, which is a participatory action research project to advance social, environmental and co-op impact assessment. She is Principal Researcher at Duguid Consulting and an instructor in the SMU Co-operative Business Management program, as well as the MBA program (CED) at Cape Breton University. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank the Centre of Excellence in Accounting and Reporting for Cooperatives (CEARC) for their assistance in completing this research and producing this paper. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their valuable time and thoughtful input and we thank Daphne Rixon, as editor of the International Journal of Co-operative Accounting and Management (IJCAM), for publishing this paper.