Annual reports and ESG: who reads, what to write, how to write

An investment fund or financial company's annual report is not like a typical corporate brochure. It serves both as a legal obligation and a signal of trust to investors and the market. When Sinh Vũ takes on this type of project, the first question is not "what colors" but "who will read this document and what decisions do they need to make."

The mandatory legal framework before discussing design

If your business is listed on HOSE or HNX, or is a public company, Circular 96/2020/TT-BTC clearly stipulates the structure, minimum content, and publication deadlines. Financial information must align with the audited annual financial report and be published no later than 20 days after the audit report, not exceeding 110 days from the end of the financial year. The sustainable development section according to the annex of Circular 96 includes content groups such as energy use, water, emissions, labor policies, and social responsibility. This is an essential starting point before considering any design options.

When the fund reports to international investors.

For fundraising or reporting to international LPs (limited partners), Circular 96 needs to be supplemented with a global reference framework. The two most common frameworks are GRI and ISSB.

• GRI (Global Reporting Initiative): a multi-stakeholder approach, broad coverage, suitable when you want to tell a comprehensive sustainability story for various target groups.
• ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) with IFRS S1 and S2: defines precisely what must be disclosed to the capital market, focusing on investors. IFRS S2 fully integrates TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) recommendations regarding climate risks.

These two frameworks complement each other, and many businesses use them in parallel. Choosing one does not mean abandoning the other.

Should ESG be integrated into the annual report or kept separate?

Common mistakes that break trust

• Viewing the annual report as a beautiful publication and forgetting the mandatory items and deadlines of Circular 96.
• The data in the design section deviates from the audited financial report. This is a technical error, but investors will notice immediately and lose trust.
• Overloading dense data without visualizing it can bury the main message. Investors skim documents in the first few seconds.
• Labeling ESG while only telling positive stories, lacking data and measurement methods according to standard frameworks. This part will be scrutinized by international institutions.
• Copying the ISSB or GRI framework from abroad while omitting mandatory sections according to Vietnamese law.

A good investor report is not the most comprehensive report, but one that investors can read and understand the key messages the business wants to convey within the time they actually have.

Practical experience of Sinh Vũ

The viewpoint of Sinh Vũ

Sinh Vũ approaches this type of document as an information architecture problem: first determining who the readers are and what the core message is, then transforming the chaotic data into a chart that can be read in three seconds while keeping the entire document looking like it was written by an organization. Hard boundary: Sinh Vũ does not write internal financial or legal content, audit figures, or ESG data that is guaranteed by the company and specialized units. For reports ranging from 60 to 100 pages, Sinh Vũ creates a master template to ensure consistency across multiple sections, and provides the original file for the internal team to update figures in subsequent periods without starting from scratch.