Abstract
M.A. (Environmental Management)
Implementing corporate sustainability reporting as part of companies’ annual reports is a growing trend in
South Africa and throughout the world. The King III code became effective from March 2010 and strongly
encourages JSE listed companies to apply triple bottom line reporting, whereby companies integrate their
environmental, social and economic practices into their annual reporting. The purpose of this study was to
investigate the sustainability reporting practices of three selected tourism companies listed on the
Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The three tourism companies that were selected for the study were
Sun International, City Lodge and Wilderness Holdings. Three evaluation frameworks were developed
from 1) the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines (G3.1); 2) the JSE: Social
Responsible Investment (SRI) Index criteria; and 3) the South African National Standard for Responsible
Tourism (SANS 1162) criteria. The three evaluation frameworks were used as a tool to assess the
tourism companies’ annual reports in terms of international, South African and tourism industry-specific
criteria. Using these frameworks provided a way of assessing the extent of sustainability reporting within
annual reports and allowed for comparison across companies and years. Overall, the study provided an
understanding of how the selected companies had been producing their annual reports from 2010 to
2012. The study also provided feedback on the companies’ previous reporting practices in terms of the
sustainability criteria and provided information on how these companies can improve their future
sustainability reporting.