The NGO Transparency International published a report this week to show how Brazil’s largest companies are improving their transparency and anti-corruption standards. A global reference, the study shows that transparency in corporate reports is one of Transparency International’s most important publications.

The study “Transparency in Corporate Reporting: Brazil’s 100 biggest companies and 10 biggest banks” evaluates just how transparent the country’s 100 largest companies and top 10 banks are with regard to the information they disclose, based on three dimensions: anti-corruption program, organizational structure and financial reporting by country. Read the details of the study on the Transparency International website.

According to Transparency International, the ranking encourages companies to adopt ever higher standards in transparency. The second objective is so that these anti-corruption commitments can be known and demanded by the market and society in general.

“When a company reports details of its anti-corruption program, it undertakes a public commitment: any stakeholder (employee, client, investor, regulator) will then have the elements to verify if the promise is being kept and to exert pressure so that it actually happens,” stated Transparency in its report.

Odebrecht earned a maximum score for the transparency of its Anti-corruption Program

In the general ranking of the dimensions of anti-corruption programs and organizational transparency, the average score of Brazilian companies was 5.7, on a scale from 0 to 10. Odebrecht was one of nine companies that attained maximum scores in the transparency of their Anti-corruption Program, with an average score of 7.5, which put the group in 29th place in the overall ranking.

“The results for reporting on the Anti-corruption Program show significant progress at Brazilian companies compared to multinationals in other emerging markets. Other results show also that there is still a need to evolve in aspects such as organizational transparency and financial data by country of operation,” said Sérgio Leão, Chief Sustainability Officer at Odebrecht S.A. and the person in charge of publishing the Group’s Annual Report in accordance with the GRI framework.