Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment * Correspondence to: Ralf Isenmann, University of Bremen, Institute for Project Management and Innovation (IPMI), and Research Institute for Sustainability Studies (artec), Wilhelm-Herbst-Straße 12, D-28359 Bremen, Germany. E-mail: ralf.isenmann@innovation.uni-bremen.de 1 This concept highlights three dimensions of a company’s value creation: profit, people and planet. Business Strategy and the Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 16, 487–501 (2007) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/bse.597 Online Reporting for Sustainability Issues Ralf Isenmann* 1 , Christoph Bey 2 and Markus Welter 3 1 Institute for Project Management and Innovation (IPMI), and Research Center for Sustainability Studies (artec), University of Bremen, Germany 2 ESCEM School of Business and Management, Poitiers, France 3 Department for Economics and Economic Policy, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany ABSTRACT Online reporting describes an emerging digital reporting approach based on support through current information and communication technology (ICT), particularly on the internet. Such a computer-based method provides an array of medium-specific capabilities and technical benefits to improve sustainability communication, both for companies (reporters) and their various stakeholders (report users). Compared with orthodox methods, online reporting used for sustainability communication over- comes the limitations of paper-based disclosure, such as ‘one size fits all’ reports, print medium fixation and one-way communication. The contribution gives an outline on this up-and-coming sustainability online reporting approach in four categories. (i) Medium-specific trends in the field are observed. (ii) New opportunities emerging for corporate sustainability communication are identified. (iii) A framework for sustain- ability online reporting is presented. (iv) Limitations are discussed that should be considered when moving away from early reporting stages towards the advanced one of sustainability online reporting. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 21 February 2006; revised 12 July 2006; accepted 18 March 2007 Keywords: eXtensible Markup Language; Internet; online reporting; sustainability report; triple bottom line approach Introduction C ORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING HAS ITS ROOTS BOTH IN ENVIRONMENTAL AND IN non-financial reporting (IISD et al., 1992; DTTI et al., 1993; UNEP and SustainAbility, 1994). It follows a development path towards a concept of balanced reporting, usually communicating the three pillars of environmental, social and economic performance and their× mutual inter- relations, in business terms often called the triple bottom line approach (Elkington, 1997). Sometimes, this approach is put in popular terms like ‘making values count’ (ACCA, 1998), or ‘linking values with value’ (KPMG, 2000), or described as ‘creating value and optimising prosperity according to the Triple