Self-reporting

Description

Self-reporting is the proactive disclosure of relevant information by individuals, organizations, or entities about their own actions, conditions, or compliance status. This strategy aims to increase transparency, accountability, and early detection of issues, enabling timely intervention or corrective measures. By encouraging honest self-assessment and reporting, self-reporting remedies problems such as regulatory non-compliance, safety risks, or ethical breaches, and fosters a culture of responsibility and continuous improvement.

Implementation

Self-reporting as a system of monitoring or enforcement has been shown to work particularly well in the USA where the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 required some 20,000 industries to report on their annual emissions of 320 potentially carcinogenic compounds. Industries immediately started making significant reductions in their emissions, even though they had at that time not been legally required to do so. Monsanto reduced its emissions by 39% by 1992, DuPont made a 63% reduction by 1993 and Dow Chemical plans a 50% reduction by 1995.

Claim

Self-reporting is cheap. It can also supply surprisingly accurate information, providing there are strict sanctions against falsification -- as there are, for example, in the USA where falsification is a criminal offence. The public must also be given access to such reports. This can act as a powerful deterrent to falsification.