G4- the rubber hits the road

Today saw the launch of the newest version of the GRI Reporting Framework: G4. For those of you who are interested in reading all 360 pages of the two-part framework (Part One = Principles and Part Two = Implementation Guide), you can download the lot here. I will be delving into more detail in coming posts, to help the CSR Reporting Blog readers (many of whom I was delighted to meet here in Amsterdam) navigate the detail, but for now,  in the meantime, a very short update:

 

Core and Comprehensive

No longer will reporters be able to claim the highest GRI "accolade" of reporting at Application Level A+. Yes, Application Levels have been tossed into a canal somewhere in downtown Amsterdam. Instead, there are two new options for being "In Accordance" with G4. These are Core and Comprehensive. A quick translation, in the language we have become used to, is that Core is sort of C minus. Comprehensive is sort of A triple plus.

 

You have to consider Core and Comprehensive in the context of the reinforced emphasis on materiality. G4 says: first complete due process and define your material issues (GRI calls these Aspects). Then, disclose your general standard (profile) disclosures, and specific standard disclosures (management approach and performance indicators) only for those Material Aspects you have identified. This means, that a new G4 In Accordance Sustainability Report will consist of:

 

General Standard Disclosures

Specific Standard Disclosures for Material Aspects

 

Now, having understood that, this is where Core and Comprehensive comes in:

 

For General Standard Disclosures, there is no major difference in disclosure requirements at Core level:

 

 

As can be seen, at Core and Comprehensive are almost identical with three exceptions:

 

• Core doesn't need to report G4-2 (key risks and opportunities, like the G3 1.2),
• Core doesn't need to report G4-35 to G4-55 (governance disclosures, including most of the governance disclosures in G3)
• Core doesn't need to report G57-G58 (mechanisms for reporting ethical breaches)

For Specific Standard Disclosures, there is a major difference:

 

 

Spot it? For Core, at least one indicator per material aspect must be reported. At least ONE. That's it. If you have three material issues, you can take your pick of the indicators related to those material issues and report performance with one indicator each. If you have one material issue, you can report on just one performance indicator. For Comprehensive, you must report on the lot - all the performance indicators for the material aspects you selected.

 

Want an example? The Material Aspect covering Energy in G4 has 5 performance indicators.

As a Comprehensive reporter, you must disclose against all five indicators, if you have selected Energy as a Material Aspect. As a Core reporter, you can take your pick. In this case, therefore, as I understand it, as a Core reporter, it is quite possible that you have declared Energy as a Material Aspect, and have selected to disclose against G4-EN7 - reductions in energy requirements of products and services - and not against G4-EN3 - energy consumed within the organization.

 

Interesting? Sure! Fabulous? Not sure. Tomorrow (Thursday) at the G4 track of the GRI conference, there will be opportunities to hear more and debate the implications of Core and Comprehensive and the best of the rest of the changes in G4. I'll pick this up again in future posts.

 

During the conference today, I heard from most people I spoke to that the focus on materiality is welcome - the idea that a sustainability report should be about key impacts and not about all impacts is a good one, and most people like this. At another level, the requirement to disclose the process of selecting material issues is likely to be seen as challenging, because many companies today do not really have a structured process for this. At one level, some are welcoming the Core option as a sort of easy-way-in to G4 for new reporters, SME reporters or lazy reporters. Others are lamenting the lack of special acknowledgement for going the extra mile to become a Comprehensive reporter, which doesn't sound quite as sexy as being able to say "We got an A+".  The plus, by the way, awarded for external assurance, will also disappear in G4. Instead, reporters are required to indicate in the GRI G4 Content Index whether specific disclosures have been externally assured or not.  You can still be In Accordance if you disclose all your stuff without external assurance. No extra marks to be gained, just a warm fuzzy feeling that you went beyond minimum expectations.

 

After a very brief initial look, the new G4 documentation seems clear and well put together. A big improvement versus current G3 guidelines and much better than could have been anticipated from the Exposure Draft.  G4 is clearly the result of masses of effort by the GRI team and governance bodies and many many others. Being at the GRI 2013 conference gives you a sense of the major scale of this development and the hopes that it brings. It's certainly an achievement, and for that alone, I believe GRI deserves our congratulations! 

 

Watch this space for more updates and analysis of G4 over the next days, weeks, months and years. And for a lot more about related issues such as the relationship between sustainability reporting and integrated reporting, supply chain disclosures, value chain mapping, and other interesting insights that come up at the GRI 2013 conference, which by the way, numbers 1,600 delegates, making it a truly memorable event. 

 

It was such a busy day that I didn't even get a chance to go for ice-cream. :(

 

 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Dr Sustainability en route to the GRI Conference

Dr. Sustainability is back in Europe, and this time, heading to the top sustainability event of the year, the GRI Conference. It's been a while since Dr. Sustainability was here.  As we all anticipate the news, the G4 revelation, the learning, discussion, debate, networking, inspiration, innovation, information and integration, and of course, the ice cream, Dr. Sustainability shares some thoughts about what she will be looking for from the GRI conference, in response to #CSR Reporting Blog reader questions.

Dear Dr. Sustainability:  What are your thoughts as you head to the GRI conference this year?
Dear Nosey:  As I head to the GRI Conference, I will be thinking about whether this event will go down in history as the conference that makes or breaks sustainability reporting. A lot is at stake. Will G4 be applauded or will it be stoned? Will anyone throw shoes at the speakers during the G4 launch, or will they throw flowers? I have packed a spare pair of  recycled ecofriendly sneakers and an inflatable tulip just in case.

 

Dear Dr. Sustainability:  What do you think will be the highlights of this year's conference?  

Dear Spotlight: I think the plenary room has the tallest ceilings so those lights will definitely be the high ones.

 

Dear Dr. Sustainability:  Do you think it is justified to have a full conference with people travelling from all over the world generating loads of carbon emissions and consuming endless resources? Wouldn't it be better to have a virtual conference? 

Dear Greenie: Yes, I tend to agree that the environmental impact of such a conference is enormous. But the problem with virtual conferences is that the experiences and outcomes are also virtual. Have you ever tried virtually eating an ice-cream? Believe me, it's not great.

Dear Dr. Sustainability:  Which of the speakers are you most looking forward to hearing?

Dear Listener: Actually, I am most looking forward to hearing Elaine Cohen, who is an ultra-interesting speaker and always has something provocative to say. But... err...ooops... ahem... Elaine is not on the list. Maybe provocative is not so good. Perhaps I will ask for my money back.  

 

Dear Dr. Sustainability:  Will you be tweeting #GRI2013 during the conference ?

Dear Tweep: Oh, of course. I have preprogrammed my smartphone with a set of useful acronyms to help tweeting go faster during the conference. I asked the GRI to add them to the GRI Conference App, but they haven't gotten around to that yet. In case you want to do the same, here they are:

• IAHAWT: I am having a wonderful time
• TISB: This is so boring
• NIT4ABOPN: Now it's time for a bit of power networking.
• G44E: G4 Forever
• G4NW: G4 No Way
• G4WGDIH: G4 will go down in history. (Think about it :)
• WIGRISNTARQ: Why is GRI still not talking about reporting quality?
• WTFISN: Who the f*** is speaking now?
• WMUWTIO: Wake me up when this is over.
• HMMTCYSMI1C: How many more times can you say materiality in one conference?
• ITSAOIAC: Is this speaker asleep or in a coma?
• TISAIASGIC: This is so amazing. I am so glad I came.
• IIHIA1MTITIWGC: If I hear In Accordance one more time I think I will go crazy.
• YIHGC: Yes, I have gone crazy.
• DIHTR: Did I hear that right?
• WTBOATS: Will this be over any time soon?
• TITP2MATGRIC: This is the place to meet all the GRI celebs.
• IJMAGRIC: I just met a GRI celeb.
• AGASB: Anyone got a spare bicycle?
• IIDAMNIWNAN: If I do any more networking, I will need another net.
• CAMMATTU: Come and meet me at the Tweet-UP. (Wednesday May 22nd at 12:00 in the Internet corner.)
• IWNFTC: I will never forget this conference.
• IWWTWHTNGRIC: I wonder where they will hold the next GRI conference? :)
• WTIC: Where's the ice-cream?

Dear Dr. Sustainability:  Do you think that the GRI Conference will go a long way to advance integrated reporting?

Dear Integrator: Well, there will be a lot of talk about integrated reporting, I am sure.  But I am not quite sure why. After all, integrated reporting is sustainability reporting without the sustainability, as in the following formula: IIRC + GRI = SR - S. Or to put it another way, integrated reporting is to sustainability reporting what a Magimix is to fruit salad. You get a smooth, uniform, totally interlinked and easy-flowing output but try to pick out a piece of banana and you don't stand a chance.  I have bought myself a pair of earphones which filter out all the sentences in the plenary speeches which contain the word integrated. This probably means I will hear about four lines in the first four hours. 
 

Dear Dr. Sustainability: How many of the 1,500 conference delegates to you expect to meet personally? 

Dear Networker: That's the wrong question. You should ask how many of the 1,500 conference delegates expect to meet me.  Of course, if you are referring to readers of the #CSR Reporting Blog, then the answer is all of them :)

Dear Dr. Sustainability: What is your reason for attending the GRI Conference this year?

Dear Curious:  Because there wasn't one last year.

Dear Dr. Sustainability: Do you plan to ask any tough questions at the plenary sessions?
Dear Ernst: There are no tough questions. There are only tough answers. I expect all my questions will be easy. For example: Now that G4 is done and dusted, when will G5 be developed?

 
Dear Dr. Sustainability: I have heard that the GRI is restricting lunches to one sandwich each, in order to make the conference more sustainable. Do you have a view on that?
Dear Foodie: I have no problem with that. As long as they make it a Rubik's Cubewich.

Dear Dr. Sustainability: Will you be offsetting your carbon emissions for your travel to the conference?
Dear Carbonperson: No. I won't be buying offsets. I will be selling them. I plan to walk to the conference with a solar panel hat on my head which will feed into the electricity grid that serves central Amsterdam. I will supply 0.5 surplus KWH each day of the conference and more if I go walking in the breaks.  In this way, I will probably be the most carbon positive delegate at the conference. Additionally, I have a plan to capture all the hot air that is likely to be generated in hundreds of speeches and conversations during three days of the conference program and funnel it into a compressor that will provide power for an entire city in Indonesia. 

Dear Dr. Sustainability: What message would you like to give to the conference organizers?

Dear Messenger: This is my message:  Have a great conference! 

Dear Dr. Sustainability: What message would you like to give to the conference delegates?

Dear Messenger 2: This is my message:  Have a great conference!


  elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

We love Sustainability Reports!

This week, in Bucharest, I had the opportunity to deliver a Sustainability Reporting training workshop attended by Corporate Responsibility leaders in several large and leading companies in the Romanian market. The training workshop was organized by ResponsabilitateSociala.ro, who is running the exceedingly popular European CSR Lessons, taking place as I write (16-17 May 2013, and which I regrettably was not able to stay on to attend) and was hosted by GSK Romania, the first GRI-based sustainability reporter in the Romanian pharma sector,  and 2nd runner up in the CRRA'13 online reporting awards in the First Time Reports category.

 

 

My training covered a review of global trends, a taste of what might be to come on the Sustainability Reporting horizon (including some explanation and speculation about the upcoming G4), guidance in the process of developing a report and the essential indicators worth reporting on for any business, small or large. With a range of participants from different companies and sectors (energy, telecoms, food, technology, communications, pharma and beverages), we had a lively discussion and debated fascinating reporting dilemmas and questions. With the European Directive for Reporting doing the rounds with decision-makers in Brussels, Romania has a long way to go in order to develop a sustainability reporting culture, with relatively few reporters on the current landscape in that country. A few companies show leadership:

 

Siveco: An IT software and solution provider which as been reporting since 2008 and has now published four sustainability reports, the last one for the year 2011. Siveco also participates in the UN Global Compact and has published three COP's, the last one covering 2012. This privately owned IT company, employing 1,200 people, demonstrates and authentic and serious approach to sustainability and the development of digital Romania.

 

Petrom: Petrom, an integrated oil and gas company employing around 30,000 people, has come a long way in reporting. Starting with a Health Safety and Environment Report (HSE) for 1999-2000, in 2007-2008 Petrom switched to publishing online sustainability reports, with the most recent for 2011 being available as a PDF download.  The report is clearly written and contains progress against prior year targets and new targets for the coming year.

 

Cosmote: Cosmote's last report covers 2011 and is a GRI-checked Application Level B report, the company's second, though Cosmote Group, based in Greece, Cosmote Romania's parent company, has been reporting annually on sustainability performance for several years. Cosmote Romania is a large mobile telecommunications operator with a network covering 90% of Romania. Cosmote Romania's report is a serious affair, with detailed reporting against GRI indicators and specific updates on progress and new targets.

 

Heineken Romania: This second and most recent report covering 2011 is called "Brewing a Better Future" and covers similar themes to the global Heineken, though it takes less water to brew a pint of beer in Romania than it does elsewhere in the Heineken world. That's definitely worth reporting.

 

There are a few more companies who have reported in the past, but whichever way you look at it, both the extent and maturity of reporting in Romania is still in its early stages. With most of the participants in the workshop having a desire to start reporting, or take their existing reporting to the next level, I am looking forward to seeing many more reports coming out of Romania in the future.

 

However, that wasn't the point I wanted to make in this post. I don't do a lot of training, so when I do, it's quite special. Training always help you see things through the eyes of others, through the questions they ask and the comments they make. Their takeaways from the training session help you understand how you are making an impact. One of the most significant messages, for instance, that some of the group confirmed coming out of this session, was a new understanding of the way materiality fits into sustainability reporting. So many companies report without considering the real issue of their role in society and the material issues that arise from that role, and yet, that's the compelling core of reporting. We all know that materiality is going to become even more of a focus with new GRI G4 framework and organizations such as SASB that are creating a new standard for identifying and reporting on material issues. Reporting is not just about transparency. It's about relevant transparency.

The overwhelming feeling that I always come away with from such events is that, all around the world, whether it's in Romania, or Slovenia where I ran a similar event in the early part of the week, or in any of the countries I have visited to spread the Sustainability Reporting message, it all comes down to people with passion who are doing the best job they can with the tools they have available and the knowledge they have acquired. We think of reports as words on paper or on a screen. But they are people. They are a reflection of an increasingly complex business environment with ever-more challenging demands in a reporting landscape which is getting more difficult to decipher. Hopes for harmonization in reporting seem still to be a distant aspiration. The act of training groups of passionate people just brings home to me that all reports are good, all reports are an attempt to do better, all reports are worth the words they contain because each word is one that a person somewhere, doing the best job they can with the best of intentions, has put herself, or himself,  on the line to deliver.  That may sound shmaltzy, and it's sometimes difficult to get that when you read clumsily written reports, or ones that don't quite match up to expectations. But it is worth keeping in mind.

Sustainability reporting is a reflection of people, not of companies.
If you love people, then you must love sustainability reports!
In Bucharest, we all agreed on that!  

 

 

  

Elaine Cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Is reporting bad news?

As mentioned in my previous post, the annual  CR Reporting Awards CRRA '13 Winners were announced during a special, one-day, by-invitation-only CR Perspectives conference hosted by CorporateRegister.com in late April. The conference shared the results of the CR Perspectives survey, which was completed by hundreds of people around the world and yielded some very interesting results. A full analysis of the results will be published and made freely available by the end of May on CorporateRegister.com.

I chaired the CR  Perspectives conference, which gave me the opportunity to hear and share CR Perspectives with a full-house of fascinating people from all over the world, including China. 

Paul Scott, MD of CorporateRegister.com, a fully-fledged Sustainability Reporting authority and celebrity, told me: “As CR reporting continues to evolve, CorporateRegister was very pleased to offer a forum where recent developments and the direction of reporting could be debated by an informed audience of practitioners. CR reporting developed organically, and as it matures we find various organisations attempting to steer it one way or the other. What our CR Perspectives survey has shown is that people involved in reporting make up their own minds, and we could be in for some surprises.”

CR Perspectives opened up with  Richard Howitt, MEP and European Parliament's spokesperson on Corporate Social Responsibility who spoke about the recent non-financial reporting directive which has been proposed by the European Commission, which, if adopted, will require companies of 500 employees and more to disclose information on "policies, risks and results as regards environmental matters, social and employee-related aspects, respect for human rights, anti-corruption and bribery issues, and diversity on the Boards of Directors." Richard is optimistic that this will go through all the necessary approvals to become law within the next six months or so - resulting in another 18,000 companies delivering sustainability reports - integrated or standalone- a big increase from the 2,500 that Richard says make some form of disclosure today. Richard talked about ethics and trust  in business as being part of the economic crisis we find ourselves in today, and that these are not only part of the crisis, but the route out of the crisis. He believes the European Directive will help Europe to catch up with progress made in other countries such as South Africa, Denmark, Brazil and more, where non-financial reporting has already been advanced in some form. Interestingly, Richard said that non-financial reporting should not be a big financial burden on companies. He quoted a figure of GBP 4,200 additional cost for each company to produce this information, less for smaller businesses. I am not quite sure how this was calculated but I wouldn't bet my last ice-cream on that one. However, Richard Howitt's perspectives were a great starter for what turned out to be a fascinating, packed day of discussion and ... well.. perspectives.

 

Paul Scott shared the results of the CR Perspectives survey and I can't resist providing a glimpse of a few of the initial results, pending the full and final version later this month. For example:

• Over 95% of respondents agreed that CR Reporting builds trust. Great news!
• Mandatory reporting or disclosure was the thing that the highest number of people agreed would lead to better uptake of reporting (I proposed that reporters receive free ice-cream, but I don't think that gained too much ground). 
• Over half of the survey respondents agreed that improved standardization would lead to better quality reporting.
• 92% of respondents believe that an annual form of reporting is the way to go, with much less support for continuous updates throughout the year
• A whopping 63% of reporters supported country-specific reporting, as opposed to regional or global. This is validation for multinationals who commendably invest so much effort in producing local reports.
• Almost all respondents believe that all stakeholders are important audiences for CR reporting, which continues to make the reporting task a complex one, trying to meet the demands of multiple stakeholder groups.
• When asked what would make reporting more credible, the highest number of respondents said: bad news! Quantified data, assurance and use of a known reporting standard also came in with quite some support.

During the day, we heard from a range of CR practitioners and experts, including Jo Franses of Coca Cola Enterprises, Rupert Thomas of Royal Dutch Shell, Verity Lawson of BAT, Shannon Shoul of Nike, Core Olsen from Novo Nordisk, Sophie Guillou of La Poste, Joss Tantram of Terrafiniti  and Lois Guthrie, of the Climate Standards Disclosure Board, who is always an interesting contributor.

 

We debated with passion some of the big issues of the day, from the level of understanding that companies have of the value of reporting in a "survival"" context, to the use of reporting to drive corporate value. Of course, the concept of box-ticking came up, as it always does when people talk about reporting, and while a certain amount of that is always required, especially if we move to more standardized formats, the focus on materiality may well drive companies to think more deeply about what really matters rather than what boxes are available to tick.  

 

On credibility, given that the most significant credibility builder is apparently bad news, the one thing that companies don't want to report, I asked the panel what bad news they include in their reports and what they consider bad news to actually mean. The consensus seemed to be that bad news includes: failure to meet targets, failure to address material issues due to significant challenges, and worsening of performance such as in the area of safety or GHG emissions. For bad news to be noticed, it also should not be hidden way and minimized to the point that it's unrecognizable as bad news. This also gave me the opportunity to tell the story of the work I did with GSK Romania in helping to prepare their first, local, CR Report, called Valuing your Trust. In my first meeting with the General Manager, Pascal Prigent, I asked: "What can we not report? What do you not want to include in this CR Report?" Pascal looked me, puzzled, as if this was a rather odd question. His response: "Nothing. You can include in the report anything that is relevant to telling our full, honest and authentic CR performance in all the necessary areas." I didn't actually find too much bad news to disclose at GSK Romania, after interviewing all the management team and tens of others, and reviewing mounds of data and information, but the open approach of leadership and willingness to be fully transparent in the interests of building trust and credibility is something that more reporters would do well to emulate.

 

Now that we have established that bad news works, perhaps we can expect to be reading lots more bad news in future reports. This may be totally depressing but at least we will trust everybody:).

 

Watch this space for more bad news!

 

 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Drumroll for the CRRA'13 winners!

Once again, amidst great fanfare, the annual iconic CRRA '13 Awards Winners were announced during a special, one-day, by-invitation-only CR Perspectives conference hosted by CorporateRegister.com and free to participants in the CR Perspectives survey and CRRA '13 winners and other guests. More about this in another post. CorporateRegister.com is home to the world’s most comprehensive directory of corporate non-financial reports with close to 48,000 reports from 9,900 companies across almost all the countries you can think of.

Reports from six countries took the nine first place awards, with the U.S. and Canada picking up five of the top nine places, and the UK, Denmark, Australia and South Korea picking up one each.

 

Ten countries made the top 27 places (first place and two runners up in each category) in this order: U.S. (9 top places), Canada (4 top places), UK and Korea (3 top places), and Switzerland, Romania, Denmark, Korea and Japan picking up one of the top 27 places each.

 

Interestingly, the top eight reports (across nine categories, Nike won twice) all represent different sectors, showing that it doesn't matter what you do, if you report well, you get noticed!

 

Nike was the star of the awards, with two outright first place wins, including Best Overall Report. This coveted award has been won only by three other companies in the history of CRRA - HP, Vodafone plc (three times) and Coca Cola Enterprises, Inc. Nike has not competed in CRRA in previous years, so this win is especially rewarding for the Nike team, I imagine.

Overall, CRRA '13 drew 5,739 valid votes, a slight decrease versus last year, but still a very respectable stakeholder turnout.  European votes led the pack, as did votes from corporate CR Professionals, showing that reporters are interested in reports. Who'da thunk it? However, many other stakeholder types are represented in the voting, ranging from academics to media to investors through to NGOs government agencies and, of course, consultants :). 

 

  

So, without further ado.... drumroll..... here are the winners. (NB. Links are the report profiles on the CorporateRegister.com website, so you need to be registered to view them).

Best Report

Winner: Nike Inc - FY10/11 Sustainable Business Performance Summary (U.S.)

1st Runner-up: Intel Corporation - 2011 Corporate Responsibility Report (UK)

2nd Runner-up: Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc - CR & Sustainability Report  (U.S.)

The Nike report won by a fair margin. It is a GRI-based self-declared B level report, and is meant for online reading. It's a report designed with the reader in mind, and one which is connected to the big issues of the day. If you are going to read any report in the next few months, this is a good pick. I believe I myself gave this report top marks, and was quoted in the CRRA '13 Winners Summary.

Comments on Nike's winning report- the CSR Consultant in Israel is me
(These comments came with Nike's win in the Innovation category -
there are more comments in the Best Report category)

Best First Time Report
Winner: Samsung Engineering Co Ltd - 2011 Sustainability Report (South Korea)

1st Runner-up: RockTenn - 2012 Sustainability Report (U.S.)

2nd Runner-up: GSK Romania - Corporate Responsibility Report 2011 (Romania)

 

Samsung picked up the Asian vote for this 80 page GRI B+ Level report, which, in typical Asian report style, is packed with charts and diagrams and a wealth of information. Congrats too to RockTenn, but my personal preference has to be with the report of a company who I have come to greatly admire - GSK Romania - in second runner up place. I worked on this report with GSK Romania so I know how genuine and transparent an effort this represents. 

Best Integrated Report
Winner: Novo Nordisk A/S - Annual Report 2011 (Denmark)

1st Runner-up: Vancouver City Savings Credit Union - 2011 Annual Report  (Canada)

2nd Runner-up: Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Limited - Annual Report 2012 (Japan)

 

No-one was surprised with the Novo win in this Integrated Report category. Novo have long since made integrated reporting their mark of distinction and this is another in a string of powerful reports. Integrated Reports still remain a small percentage in the sustainability reporting landscape, but on that playing field, Novo plays to win. Novo has taken the Best Integrated Report in every year this competition has been held, with the exception of CRRA '11, when entries prohibited previous winners in order to give a fair chance to other reporters.

 

Best Carbon Disclosure
Winner: Hydro Québec:Sustainability Report 2011 (Canada)

1st Runner-up: Xstrata plc - Sustainability Report 2011 (Switzerland)

2nd Runner-up: Royal Dutch Shell plc - Sustainability Report 2011 (Netherlands)

 

Hydro Quebec scored highly in my analysis of the Best Carbon reporters, so I believe this is a fair win. I was disappointed not to see Alcatel Lucent up there in the top three (they came in at 8th place), as I thought their carbon reporting stood out well above the rest.  

 

Creativity in Communications
Winner: Dell Inc - 2012 Corporate Responsibility Report (U.S.)

1st Runner-up:Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc - CR & Sustainability Report 2011/2012 (U.S.)

2nd Runner-up: International Flavors & Fragrances Inc - Sustainability Report 2011 (U.S.)

 

A hat-trick for the U.S. reporters in the creativity category. Interesting, no? Is creativity a core American competency? Dell's GRI A+ Report is certainly an impressive 100 pages, and a new approach to reporting apparently paid off. Dell said about their own report: "This year we utilized a fact sheet-based report model. We moved to this new format in order to improve the readability of our report both in report content and report structure for our audience. Through bulleted points our report offers clear, concise examples of what Dell did in FY12 to progress Dell corporate responsibility and what we will do next." Dell has competed most years since the start of the CRRA awards, but this is the first time they have won first place in any category.

 

Innovation in Reporting

Winner: Nike Inc - FY10/11 Sustainable Business Performance Summary (U.S.)

1st Runner-up: Lockheed Martin Corporation - 2011  Corporate Sustainability Report (U.S.)

2nd Runner-up: Korea Railroad Corporation - 2011 Sustainability Report (South Korea) 

 

A new category to the CRRA line up this year (replacing the Best SME category, which took a nose-dive, due to the low number of SME entries (time to take a look at my new book, Sustainability Reporting for SMEs?)) and Nike hits the spot with their worthy report, a fitting re-entry of Nike back into CRRA after an absence of several years (Nike was runner-up in CRRA '07, the first CRRA, in the Best Openness and Honesty category).

 

Relevance & Materiality
Winner: Co-operative Group Limited - Sustainability Report 2011 (UK)

1st Runner-up: SK Telecom Co Ltd - 2011 Sustainability Report (South Korea)

2nd Runner-up: Marks and Spencer plc - How We Do Business Report 2012 (UK)

 

Poor Marks and Spencer. They were glowing (deservedly) at last year's award ceremony, having taken two first place awards (Best Openness and Honesty and Best Materiality) in CRRA '12. However, the Co-Operative Group, which also won the Ethical Corporation X Factor ranking, produced a really interesting report and deserves this win.  

Openness & Honesty
Winner: Pacific Hydro Pty Limited - Annual Review & Sustainability Report 2012 (Australia)

1st Runner-up: Marks and Spencer plc - How We Do Business Report 2012 (UK)

2nd Runner-up: Export Development Canada - CSR Report 2011 (Canada)

 

Pacific Hydro, one of two Australian reports that came out in the top 23 reports (which achieved the 27 top positions, three in each category) is a worthy winner, and is no stranger to CRRA, having won the Best SME report in CRRA '11. This year, Pacific Hydro produced a clean, well-written, direct report which clearly attracted voters, who gave this report a significant win, with a big margin, well ahead of the rest of the pack.

Credibility through Assurance
Winner: Vancouver City Savings Credit Union  - 2011 Annual Report

1st Runner-up: La Trobe University - Sustainability Report 2011

2nd Runner-up: Banco Bradesco SA - Sustainability Report 2011

 

This is Vancity's first win in all the CRRA years that they entered and they succeeded with the help of Ernst & Young Canada who delivered their Assurance Statement which carries out both reasonable assurance on reporting principles and carbon emissions, and limited assurance on performance information and targets. The statement is comprehensive and detailed and includes a recommendation for improvement. A good statement (one of the few we come across) which completes a good report.  

 

The full winners report is now freely available on the CorporateRegister.com website here (login required).

 

If you are looking for inspiration as you move into  your 2013 report development and aspire to make the CRRA '14 leader board, this is a good place to start. Good luck! Congrats to all the winners!

 

 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

How to say Sustainability in a Poster

Having spent a lot of time on this blog talking about the new generation of the GRI Guidelines and the G4 Exposure Draft, and speculating about what it will look like when it is actually launched, it is now time for the talking to stop and the action to begin, as we enter the countdown phase for the G4 launch. It's time for everyone to start placing bets as the exact format for the G4 launch is being kept well under wraps. If you are not in Amsterdam on May 22-24, to hear the first exposure of the G4 draft, and engage with 1,500 or more sustainability professionals, consultants, commentators, academics, regulators, activists and optimists at the Innovation, Information, Integration GRI Conference, you will be missing out on THE sustainability event of the 2013 calendar. Download the conference agenda here. Plus, if you attend, you'll get to meet all our online friends at the TWEET-UP, which will be at 12:00 noon on Wednesday 22nd May, a unique opportunity to put all those Twitter handles to Twitter faces. 

One of the star attractions of the conference will, of course, be the first exposure of the G4 guidelines and the proposals for adopting them as the reporting journey moves forward. The G4 track runs through the conference, starting with the launch at the end of Day 1, running through Day 2 and finishing up on Day 3. If you attend all these sessions, you will become a true G4 expert and be able to advise your company on its reporting journey going forward.

Day One Wednesday 22nd May

17:30 G4 Launch "This plenary will showcase the G4 development process and present the views of different stakeholders on how G4 will help advance organizational reporting and transparency." Speakers are: Denise Esdon, Ernst & Young; Karin Ireton, Standard Bank Group; Mervyn King, IIRC; Roel Nieuwenkamp, Director Trade Policy at Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs; Herman Mulder, Chairman GRI

 

Day Two Thursday 23rd May 

09:00: G4 Content Briefing: Jo Confino of the Guardian and Nelmara Arbex of the GRI will introduce the G4 guidelines

10:00: Defining Report Content: Material Aspects and Boundaries discussion will be moderated by Simon Longstaff, St. James Ethics Centre Disclosure 

11:30:  Disclosure on Management Approach (DMA) discussion will be moderated by Judy Kuszewski, SustainAbility

14:30: Governance and Remuneration discussion will be moderated by Christianna Wood, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the International Corporate Governance Network

16:00: Supply Chain discussion, moderated by Simon Longstaff, St. James Ethics Centre

Day Three Friday 24th May

09:00: Greenhouse Gas Emissions reporting discussion, moderated by Simon Longstaff... again.

In addition to the G4 track, there are "Trends in Reporting" sessions, Regional Overviews by Delegations from around the world, Policy and Regulation sessions and Learning Sessions, such as "First Time Reporting Made Easy" with Crystal Crawford, Corporate Responsibility Specialist of Liberty Global, whose report I featured on the CSR Reporting blog a while ago. (10:00 Thursday 23rd, Day Two)

In other words, plenty of interesting perspectives, updates, networking, discussion, insight, information, innovation and integration. I am looking forward to seeing absolutely loads of old, new, offline, online and bothline friends, colleagues and sustainability movers-and-shakers at the conference.  

In the meantime, before you get to Amsterdam, there is something else you can be doing.

 

As you may know, the voting period for GRI’s Next Generation Competition began on Wednesday 20th March, on GRI’s Facebook page. More than 60,000 Facebook users have been reached, and more than 3,000 votes (or "likes") for the different posters presented have already been received. The competition was designed to encourage young professionals up to age 30  to engage with the sustainability agenda and compete for the opportunity to be part of a landmark conference and turning point in Sustainability Reporting history. The challenge was to design a poster that promotes an inspiring concept or message to encourage people and/or companies to accelerate the transition towards a sustainable global economy, while relating to one or all of the key words that make-up the theme of the GRI Global Conference: Information, Integration, Innovation.

 

The Facebook album of the 25 posters submitted can be viewed on Facebook via this link: http://on.fb.me/16006K9, and you are invited to "like" the posters you believe best reflect and inspire sustainability. Public voting closes on  10th April, which means your chance to vote for the top 10 is quickly approaching!

See the full selection of posters, and vote for your faves, on Facebook!

 

 

Once determined by public voting, the top 10 posters will be submitted to an international jury (which includes me, myself and I, as well as other sustainability pros) for a shortlist selection of the top three posters.  The authors of these top three posters will be invited to join GRI (and us) at the Global Conference in May and conference delegates will select the overall winner. This 1st Prize winner will be invited to give a speech at the closing plenary session of the conference, to explain her or his entry and inspire the international audience! Who knows, one of these poster-masters may well be a global corporate sustainability leader of the future...wouldn't you like to be able to say you had a hand in her or his professional development? Sure you would... so take a look, vote and see you at the GRI conference!

PS: I will be on the lookout for the best ice-cream in Amsterdam, so all suggestions welcome!

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Is G4 reporting suicide?

Following my two recent posts, in which I partially analyzed two reports for their alignment with the new G4 Exposure Draft, I wanted to add some concluding thoughts. In developing these two (limited) analyses of Clorox and Henkel reporting, I realize that in practice, G4 is much much tougher than G3, moreso than I anticipated. Value chain, supply chain, material aspects, core and add indicators, profile disclosures, management disclosures... it's all makes the reporting task a much more serious affair. In essence, this is what we should want: a more connected sort of reporting, one which addresses real impacts and outcomes and not just a list of let's-play-nice activities. G4 requires much more in the way of planning and preparation. Mapping your value chain, consulting your stakeholders, identifying your material sustainability issues in that chain, prioritizing them and selecting how to report requires great rigor. And all of this is before you have started to send out excel files to your internal content providers for data collection and filled in your case study templates. In essence, it's the right way to go. In theory, it's the right way to report on sustainability. It bridges the gaping gap between the shopping-list sustainability report and the material role-in-society sustainability report.

However, the G4 framework as presented in the Exposure Draft does not bring out this reality in the most effective way. The new G4 guidelines are not sharp enough to prevent confusion about what is required to report and what is recommended (guidance), and the presentation is difficult, taking some time to understand and then, even only after several readings. Because of the way G4 is structured, aligning management approach categories and aspects to material issues and performance indicators is no easy exercise, and makes defining the reporting structure a job which is more stretching than writing the report itself.

At this point, I would go as far as to say that launching G4 (as presented in the Exposure Draft) for the GRI would be akin to reporting suicide.

I tend to agree with Ben Tuxworth of SalterBaxter in his article on the Guardian Sustainable Business site, in which he states: "Though nobody doubts the good intention behind the changes, the overall sense I have from a seminar we held with a dozen leading reporting businesses in December is that G4 could make GRI simply too complex and burdensome. As one reporter we spoke to put it: "if the expectations of G4 cannot be simplified, existing reporters may begin to step away from GRI, and new reporters may not be in a position to report against the guidelines at all".

Marjolein Baghuis of the GRI responded to this article with the following comments about what might be expected to launch in May:

1)  A new “in accordance” system with two tiers
2) Material focus: reporters will be required only to provide disclosures and indicators that are relevant to the business. It will be for the organization itself, in dialogue with its stakeholders, to determine what these are.
3) Separation between “What to report on” from “How to report” – greater clarity on what is requirement and what is explanation

So "In Accordance" may now become Application Level A and Application Level B? A two tier approach is not the solution. GRI needs to find a way to allow and reflect gradual and evolutionary implementation of the guidelines in a more comprehensive way without a qualitative beginners/advanced, high/low, better/worse black/white, A/B, impressive/not-impressive dichotomy. The approach needs to be fundamentally different. GRI has to be more creative here, and not simply reapply a bad system in a different way.  Creating two tiers simply adds to the complexity and creates another margin for error, or even false claims.
 

Without the competitive benefit of being able to claim "In Accordance", at whatever tier, many companies will use G4 to "inform" but not to "frame" their reporting, which would lead to a stark dilution of the application of the GRI framework in practice, possibly even less rigorous than today. While G4 has some good ideas and intent - value chain, materiality, some more detail on supply chain etc - the sum of the component parts is horrendously burdensome and, frankly, unnecessary.

 

I disagree with Ralph Thurm who claims that many of the objections to G4 are about the (increased) number of indicators that should be reported. I don't think that's it. I think the problem with G4 is the relevance of the indicators required and not the quantity. We may want transparency, but we must curb our appetite for information overload for the sake of information overload. We want to see the wood and the trees. But if we have too many trees, all we will see is a big blurry landscape with undefinable constituent parts. The 2494-page document published by the GRI including all the responses to the G4 Exposure Draft Public Comment Period makes for interesting reading (if you have a few months to spare) and largely supports the need to simplify, clarify and focus the new guidelines on what's truly important.

 

Who will monitor G4 compliance? Will GRI perform "In Accordance" checks on every report that wishes to claim this achievement? If not, who will? Stakeholders will not perform detailed checks on adherence to GRI, no matter how many times the GRI says that it is their responsibility to do so.

We all want businesses to perform better on sustainability, and be more transparent, and we recognize that there are many gaps in the current reporting landscape. G4, as is, may only serve to make those gaps wider and impossible to reconcile. Companies who are already experienced in reporting at the highest (GRI Application Level A) level, may be tempted to push the envelope, but, frankly, why should they strive to be "In Accordance"? Would it not be simpler for companies to publish a more general non-GRI based report, while responding to specific requests for information such as the Carbon Disclosure Project and the DJSI or other rating and ranking and analyst companies? Despite the objective of harmonisation, it is not clear how the GRI aligns with these frameworks (except for realignment of emission scopes reporting with the CDP), and when it comes to the crunch, companies may believe that they could gain more value from focused responses to information requests rather than publication of an overly complex Sustainability Report. In fact, this is a core inconsistency in the GRI approach. On the one hand, reporting is for stakeholders who should check whether companies are indeed transparently accountable. On the other hand, most stakeholders are not willing/able to do the detailed work to identify whether companies are actually living up to their promise in terms of report quality, accuracy and adherence to a reporting framework.

 

This is what GRI says "GRI is not in a position to police or control the quality of reports based on its Guidelines – this is outside of the remits of what GRI does. However, using GRI’s Framework means organizations should engage their stakeholders when developing their reports. GRI also encourages stakeholders to challenge reporting organizations on their sustainability goals and what they report."

The fact that almost nobody notices when companies mis-report, or mis-apply the GRI framework, may suggest that stakeholders are passive and perhaps, gullible. Or it may suggest that they are looking for the big picture, the material impacts, the difference a company's activities makes in their lives and in their communities, rather than the detail of how many suppliers of which type a company employs in Latin America and how many tons of ingredients it buys from each. It may suggest that stakeholders want enough data, but not too much, to assure themselves that executive remuneration is equitable, aligned with company performance and competently managed, rather than the entire disclosure of the "ratio of the annual total compensation percentage increase for the organization’s highest-paid individual in each country of significant operations to the median annual total compensation percentage increase for all employees in the same country (excluding the highest-paid individual)." Stakeholders want to know about supply chain risks, but may not need the full report  of "the percentage of existing suppliers and other business partners identified as having actual and potential adverse impacts on society assessed on society-related performance, and actions taken".

In this sense, G4's focus on materiality is good. But this focus is buried in a mass of profile disclosures and a long list of performance indicators which go into unnecessary depth and which most stakeholders will not know how to use. Even the most skilled of financial analysts will be challenged to understand the financial impacts of such granular disclosures. Maybe G4 will have the effect of encouraging companies to leave detailed reporting of performance to those who specifically ask for it (and presumably know what to do with it) while publishing a more general review of their sustainability impacts for the bigger picture stakeholders. I think it would be a shame if this happened and could lead to disjointed reporting and potential for inconsistencies.

 

In the run-up to the May conference, I believe the GRI needs to do some soul searching, rethink several elements in G4 and turn it into something it was originally intended to be: a simpler, clearer, more relevant and more accessible framework that will deliver information that stakeholders need and know how to use. That doesn't mean just cutting out the extra bits. I think a real back-to-the-drawing-board approach is called for to get to what matters most in the most effective way.  I hope we will see a somewhat different G4 in Amsterdam in May. I suspect it's probably pretty much wrapped up by now, bar the waiting, so these comments may have missed the train. But it's not too late to make a change in the way G4 is launched......

....... I would recommend a soft launch for G4: an invitation to up to 100 reporters to produce their 2013/2014 report using G4,  log their experience, make recommendations, and help define whether G4 is really a workable, beneficial, new framework or something that looks great on the drawing board but overly challenging in the harsh reality of corporate practice.

 

PS: In the meantime, have your say about the reporting landscape now and in the future in the CR Perspectives survey from CorporateRegister.com.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

HENKEL: G4: good-to-go?

Henkel is an early 2013 reporter, and with a GRI B (self-declared report), is now my next guinea pig in the G4 good-to-go test. As you will have seen from my first post in this series, covering the Clorox report, getting to G4 is more of a marathon than a short stroll (if G4, when launched, is fairly close to the current exposure draft).

In this analysis, I focus on just a few significant changes in G4, and these are just four Profile Disclosures and their corresponding Management Disclosures and Performance Indicators.

These are the new disclosures: (for more background see my Clorox post)

DI 12: Describe the organization's supply chain (number, type, location of suppliers, value of materials purchased etc)

DI 17: List the identified material Aspects (and other material topics).

DI 18: Describe the organization’s value chain.

DI 19: Place material Aspects (or other material topics) in the value chain.

Quick Overview of the Report

Henkel is headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany, and employs 47,000 people and generates revenues of 16.5 billion Euros, manufacturing household care and personal care products. 

Henkel 2012 Sustainability Report GRI Application Level B - self-declared, 52 pages
The printed report is linked to the web-based report using reference codes, enabling you to find additional content by inputting a code - a nice touch. Henkel states a clear strategy for 2030 - a long-term goal to triple the value created by the company's footprint (i.e. become three times more efficient), supported by quantified five-year targets to 2015 in six focal areas - for example, reducing waste, water consumption and energy by 15% per production unit by 2015. Much of Henkel's report is focused on resource efficiency in product manufacturing and development. The company has developed a "Sustainability#Master" matrix approach which identifies the "hot spot" areas for improvement in value development and environmental efficiency for its products, and applies this system for evaluating and implementing improvements.

Sustainability#Master Matrix for adhesive product Loctite Max 2

Profile Disclosures

Henkel's supply chain disclosure includes a section related to suppliers, and there is reference to the supplier base in 125 countries and the fact that more than 70% of purchased volume comes from OECD countries. Supplier selection criteria include sustainability performance and adherence to responsible business practice principles, and Henkel has a risk assessment process which requires suppliers to complete a self-assessment on sustainability issues and participate in audits of their operations.

However, Henkel does not disclose the number of suppliers it works with, nor the number of results of audits conducted. Henkel does not make any reference to the types of suppliers as required by disclosure D12, for example, whether the supplier base includes ingredient suppliers or contract manufacturers (though later in the report we can read that around 10% of Henkel's volume of over  7 million tons of output is produced by contract manufacturers).

DI 12 also requires disclosure of the "total monetary value and/or volume of materials purchased from suppliers broken down by types of materials, types of suppliers and location of suppliers" (although I fail to see why this disclosure is an essential basic profile disclosure) and Henkel does not really provide information which meets this request. DI 12 Henkel G4 good-to-go? No.

I couldn't find a Value Chain description in Henkel's report, though there is evidence of value chain thinking in the Hot Spot analyses, as in the example provided above, as these take into account the upstream and downstream effects of product development, manufacture and use. However, these descriptors are individual for selected products, and are limited to the impacts of products and not the entire organization and the entities it impacts. Additionally, the detailed impacts in these analyses are not fully disclosed - only the areas in which product improvements are identified and the progress of these improvements are noted. Therefore, mapping the Value Chain disclosure - DI 18 Henkel G4 good-to-go? NO.

Henkel has a long list of material issues, which could expand this 56 page report into something much longer in G4. I believe this complies with the requirement for listing the material issues and aspects as required by G4. DI 17 Henkel G4 good-to-go? YES

These material issues translate into 19 material Aspects in the new G4 line-up, according to my calculations. I can't examine ALL of these, but let's take a couple.

Occupational Health and Safety is a material Aspect in the Social sub-category of labor practices and decent work. There are four performance indicators here: LA 6, 7, 8 and 9, of which 8 and 9 are core. LA7 refers to "rates of injury, occupational diseases, lost days, and absenteeism, and total number of work-related fatalities, by region and by gender" and LA8 refers to education and programs to assist with serious diseases. These are unchanged in G4 and Henkel includes these indicators as fully reported. However, Henkel's reporting against LA7 in this self-declared GRI B level report does not meet the indicator requirements. Rates of injury and total fatalities are disclosed but not lost days, absenteeism and this is not split by region and gender.

LA8 relates to serious diseases.  The Indicator Protocols define this as "Occupational or non-occupational related impairment of health with serious consequences for employees, their families, and communities, such as HIV/AIDS, diabetes, RSI, and stress." I could find no disclosure relating to such diseases in Henkel's reporting, although some of the health and safety training activities listed also include, for example, "back strengthening exercises and tips on nutrition". Therefore, in this material Aspect, not only does Henkel not meet the requirements for G4, it does not meet the requirements for G3. G4 good-to-go? NO  

 

Renewable raw materials is one of Henkel's stated material issues. This fits into the Materials Aspect in the Environment category. There are two core indicators here: EN1 (materials used by weight or volume, split by renewable and non-renewable) and EN2 (percentage of recycled input materials). Henkel indicates full reporting against both indicators. Regarding materials used, Henkel reports in general on the different types of raw materials in key product categories, and notes the approximate percentage of renewables. However, no data is provided on the weight or volume of key raw materials, including sustainable palm oil, which Henkel notes as a separate issue in its own right. Henkel confirms commitment to participation in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and to purchasing of RSPO certified palm oil, but does not disclose how much palm oil the company actually uses. Henkel also mentions various initiatives to improve the sustainability of packaging, but apart from providing the total weight of packaging, does not identify how much is from recycled materials. Therefore, in these two indicators, Henkel does  show a good approach and several positive initiatives, but does not meet G4 requirements and not even G3. G4 good-to-go? NO

 

At this point, we know that Henkel's current reporting does not meet the G4 Exposure draft standards, based on, once again, a very limited analysis of just a small sample of G4 disclosure requirements. This is not surprising, as this report was not written with G4 in mind. It does however demonstrate the step change required to meet G4, as we saw with the previous Clorox example. In other words, Henkel has some significant changes to make before it can claim "In Accordance" with G4, if the company decides to become G4 compliant.

 

In my next post, I will share some further thoughts about the applicability, relevance, complexity, benefits and uptake likelihood of G4. Watch this space.

 

 

PS: In the meantime, have your say in the CR Perspectives survey from CorporateRegister.com.  

 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)