A new report has suggested that the recession could spell the end for stand-alone corporate responsibility reports. CorporateRegister.com’s CR report believes that a squeeze on corporate budgets will inevitably see CR reports rolled into annual reports and accounts.

However, it sees some positives in this trend. It believes the bringing together of previously separate reports could improve the overall coherence and impact of the information presented.

The report also revealed that in 2008 the world's largest companies disclosed more than ever before, with two thirds of the Global FT 500 producing CR reports. A total of 3,200 reports were published during 2008, including over 500 ‘first time’ reports. A quarter of these first time reports came from North American companies. The other steepest increase in 2008 was seen in Asia, where two thirds of all reports come from Japanese businesses.

Despite this growth however, the majority of reports don’t follow the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. In 2008, just over 1,000 companies produced a GRI report. This corresponds to around a third of all reports. Regional uptake of the GRI guidelines is variable. Uptake in Africa and the Middle East was nearly twice the global average. This trend is almost certainly driven by the Johannesburg Securities Exchange rules, which oblige companies to comply with GRI indicators.