Sustainability reports in Turkey's GRI scope and proposal for reporting for SMEs

Sustainability concept has become very important in recent years with sustainable development, which is defined as fulfillment of current needs without risking fulfillment of future generations' needs. Businesses, which have economic, social and environmental impacts, play a major role in ensuring sustainability. Sustainability of businesses is monitored via sustainability reports. Objectives of this study are to show the situation of the businesses in Turkey in terms of sustainability reports, to develop scale proper indicators of sustainability performance of SMEs, to perform an application as a guideline for SMEs in the preparation of a sustainability report. In the study, Kruskal Wallis-H and Mann-Whitney U Tests were conducted to analyses the sustainability reports, Explanatory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were conducted to develop a scale to determine proper sustainable performance indicators for SMEs. It is seen that strategy and profile disclosures are more than management approach and performance indicator disclosures in these reports. It is found that there are more disclosures in the reports of large-scale businesses than in the reports of SMEs. With this study, it is seen that businesses in Turkey does not give due importance to the sustainability reports. This is thought to be caused by reasons such as lack of legal regulations and sanctions about this issue, lack of awareness of the importance of reports, additional costs of reporting, and inadequacy of qualified accountants. Keywords: Sustainability, Sustainability Report, Sustainability in SMEs