Writes the disclosure, and insists the caveats sit in the body of the report where a board will actually read them.
A framework tells you what to disclose. It does not tell you what you can evidence, and the gap between the two is the real subject of most sustainability reports. The work begins by mapping every disclosure requirement onto a figure the company actually holds, which is the moment a reporting project discovers what is missing.
That map is the plan. It says what exists, what still has to be measured, and what will be disclosed as not yet available — the third category being the one everyone hopes to avoid writing down.
In the body of the text, next to the number they qualify. A caveat moved to a footnote is a caveat the reader was not meant to find, and an assurer reads footnotes first. Keeping it beside the figure costs nothing except the discomfort of seeing it there, which is rather the point of writing it down.
Prior-year figures have to be built on the same boundary and the same factors, or they are not comparatives at all. Where a restatement is unavoidable it is shown as a restatement, with both numbers visible and the reason between them. Quietly replacing last year's figure is the single fastest way to lose a reader who was paying attention.
If the only way to make a report look good is to move a definition, the report is already telling you something. Print that instead.
It will. The map is handed over alongside the report precisely so that the next revision is a question of which paragraphs move, rather than a question of starting again.
