15 insights from the Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference

The fourth annual Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference last week in London was by all accounts a great success. We heard from a range of experts, raised several challenges and discussed the finer points of what makes reporting smarter. Here is a selection from my opening comments to the conference as everyone braced themselves for an action-packed day:

"G4 has emerged as the leading reporting framework with close to 1,000 reporters now having started their reporting journey with G4 or transitioned to G4. Has G4 made a difference? We do see a new relationship emerging with materiality but many reports are still written with a shopping list mindset – a list of "everything good that we did". The G4 transition is still working itself out, but it's a positive development. GRI has even introduced the G4 EXAM – to prove that people who write reports really can. 

The European Directive for non-financial reporting came into force in December 2014 with around 6,000 organizations expected to get on the train by 2018. Will they just show up or will they use the reporting process to add value? In other countries, such as Taiwan and Singapore, reporting has become mandatory. Sustainability reporting is apparently not going to disappear. But what will make it smarter? 

In 2014, more companies than ever reported to the Carbon Disclosure Project. CDP now reports impacts across a range of topics – climate change, water, sustainable cities, forests, and supply chains on the basis of data submitted by 4,500 of companies representing over a third of the world's invested capital. This is a database too large to ignore. 

The IIRC continued its journey and its search for identity as more companies start to pilot the framework to explain how they create value for investors. The UN Global Compact launched a program for Boards of Directors so that Directors can actually learn what's going on. SASB has published more and more standards, but when you get beyond the hype, you realize that in some cases, you need to be a rocket scientist to understand the actual performance measures. The jury is still out on whether companies will adopt these standards and if they do, and how they will influence materiality processes. 

And talking of materiality, there is still no agreement across the board on what it actually means for sustainability and despite even more declarations of harmonization and collaboration talks, all we are seeing is more and more declarations of harmonization and collaboration talks."

All conference photos in this post are courtesy of edie.net, the conference organizer. Thank you!

Here are some of the things that others said throughout the conference (and a short reaction from me). 

Mardi McBrien, Managing Director, Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) : "In 2007, at the World Economic Forum, companies were saying there are too many ways to report climate change. Investors were saying, "well, we don't use it anyway"."
Err. What's changed?

Nelmara Arbex, Chief Advisor on Innovation in Reporting, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): "Personally, I believe that reporting promotes change and innovation. Reports used to talk about the past. Now they should be talking about the future."
I agree. But when exactly does the future start?

Sarah Grey Markets Director, International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC): "Smarter Sustainability Reporting is a pretty big issue for business. Sustainability is about having a strategic impact in the market. Hopefully some of the integrated reporting thinking will help sustainability reporting having that strategic impact."
Hopefully.

Verity Lawson, Sustainability Reporting Manager, British American Tobacco: "I think especially for an organization like us that is operating in a very controversial sector, it is particularly important that stakeholders can place trust in what we report. So the robust frameworks and processes such as independent assurance and GRI are particularly helpful. But while it is encouraging to see all the developments - G4's focus on materiality, the IR framework, the harmonization talks - frankly it is very overwhelming for reporting companies."
Harmonization is great in theory. The problem is, it's always theory. 

LTR: Shaun Davis, Louise Tyson, Irene Jakobi, Neil Barrett, me

Neil Barrett, Vice-President, Sustainable Development, Sodexo: "It's really about using sustainability reporting to create actions that will be of value to our clients. Increasingly our clients want to understand how we are helping them in their own sustainability journey".
It is great when reports are useful as part of regular business processes. And when clients know what to do with them!

Shaun Davis, Group Director - Safety, Health, Wellbeing & Sustainability, Royal Mail: "Reporting is all about engagement and taking people with you. We shouldn't forget how powerful it is as an engagement tool to talk to people about sustainability environment, safety wellbeing etc."
Tried it lately?

Louise Tyson, Head of Reporting, BP: "A lot of work goes into preparing information for reports and this is wasteful if it's mot material. Less is more. In the last three years we have cut our reporting by 30%. We are hoping that more concise reporting targeted to what our stakeholders want to know will help us answer their questions better." 
100 page reports - a thing of the past? 

Irene Jakobi, Sustainability Manager, Telekom Austria: "Now we have taken a more creative approach. Our first reports were more classic with hands and people and green trees. In 2008, we started to make a shift to more communicative content." If you want creative, look at Telekom Austria's reports!

Telekom Austria - the age of the graphic novel

Megan Mitrevski-Dale, Associate Director, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Communications, Coca-Cola Enterprises: "Starting in 2005 we set ourselves a target to reduce our operational carbon footprint by 15% by 2020. OK, we said, operations means our manufacturing facilities and field sales offices. But as we started to go through it, we realized that that's only part of the story. If our product gets to a store and its not in a cooler, no-one will buy it.  Then we realized that our main carbon footprint isn't in our operations. It is actually in our vending and cooling facilities."
How many companies think they are doing fantastically by reporting internal operational footprints when, all the time, their true impact is beyond the factory walls?  

Christoph Wilfert, Chief Executive Officer, PE International: "We think the software side of sustainability management is going to change dramatically. How do you get past email and excel spreadsheet management to support our sustainability reporting efforts? To us, reporting is not a journey of harmonization that frankly will take a very long time to come together to make your lives easier. We think its an app."
Down with harmonization. Up with apps. 

Simon Howard, Chief Executive Officer, UK Sustainable Investment & Finance Association (UKSIF): "Thirty percent of assets worldwide are run with sustainability as an aim and it's growing very fast. Can a fund manager have too much sustainability information? Overwhelmingly yes. The information they want needs to be material, relevant and timely."
G4 to the rescue. 

Paul Toyne, Group Head of Sustainability, Balfour Beatty: "We have an integrated report that has sustainability sections in it, and we use our website to disclose a lot of information. What's interesting is that when we start to get into disclosure, we spend so much time and effort to get to group level data and aggregating up to global level, but the investment we have taken here doesn't really drive performance. If we invested more time and energy into the source data and dealing with the impacts, then we would actually improve performance."
The old story of the chicken and the egg. Data to drive performance or performance to drive data? 

Crystal Crawford, Corporate Responsibility Manager, Liberty Global:  "If we manage internal reporting requirements well, then it will drive reputation and recognition. We have 45,000 data points in our data collection process." 
Data to drive performance. 

Katie Buchanan, Head of Sustainability and Reporting, Virgin Media: "At a market level its about having a real responsibility to try to bring to life the material issues for our key audiences which are our staff and our customers." 
Materiality in practice and not only in a matrix. 

All in all, a packed conference with a packed agenda and many insights for reporters, future reporters and reporting partners. We addressed the tools used for reporting, the frameworks and the practice. We plan to do the same thing next year. Same but different. In a year's time, the world will have changed and the Smarter Sustainability Reporting goalposts will have moved once again. 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise Guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Need help writing YOUR Sustainability Report? Contact elaine: info@b-yond.biz   

BP: Back in the Picture

In the world of sustainability, there are some names that evoke a range of strong emotions and reactions and I suspect that BP is one of them. BP has had some extremely interesting sustainability successes, and also, at least one devastating low point. You don't even have to mention the company name: just refer to Gulf of Mexico, Macondo, Deepwater Horizon, I want my life back - there are a million ways to say BP and most of them are not exactly positive. But if you stand back from the oil spill disaster of 2010, and accept that we are still and will continue to be reliant upon fossil fuels as our main source of energy for some time into the future, and take a look at what BP is doing today with a pair of fresh eyes, you may be encouragingly impressed. As I was.  

I was doing my homework in preparation for a conversation  with Louise Tyson, Head of Corporate Reporting at BP (that's both financial and sustainability reporting). Louise will be sharing her insights on "Giving your report complete clarity & readability" at the Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference in London in February 2015 (still time to register :)). As usual, as the conference chair, I like to chat with speakers in the run-up to the conference. Ahead of our call, I navigated to BP's sustainability and reporting site after what I confess to several years of not paying close attention. I was pleasantly surprised. 

BP is an employer of 83,000 people, a strong contributor to the global economy and a long-standing sustainability reporter addressing serious issues in detail in its reporting suite. BP has various reports and formats to meet different stakeholder information needs. This year's suite includes:

A Sustainability Review for 2013 in PDF format
Several country reports for 2013 including Angola, Azerbaijan and more
Site reports from different local operations
A report archive with reports in different languages and reports dating back to 1998
An economic impact report for BP's operations in the U.S.
A super-snazzy Health, Safety and Environment charting tool that enables you to play around endlessly to review 25 years of data in different visual formats.

And my chat with Louise Tyson:

How did you get into the reporting role at BP? 

"Actually, my background is not in reporting. I was in magazine publishing for ten years and then worked in online communications. I was a consultant to BP one year, putting their sustainability report online. That was my introduction to sustainability, around seven or eight years ago. BP later hired me as the Sustainability Reporting Manager. My first report was published five days before the Gulf of Mexico incident."    

How did you move from sustainability reporting to corporate reporting? 

"I realized that our financial and sustainability reporting often cover the same issues - such as climate change and human rights – and that we should be talking about them in the same voice, even if the reporting focus and purpose is different. So, when I was promoted to the head of corporate reporting role, I knew there was an opportunity to encourage more accessible language and consistency across all of our reporting It's turned out to be a really interesting challenge. But if you had asked me if I had ever imagined that I would be doing what I am doing today, I'd probably never have guessed."  

How has BP's reporting changed over the years? 

"For many years, BP was recognized as a leader in sustainability reporting. We would win reporting awards and we were generally considered as innovative in our approach. After the Gulf of Mexico incident, things changed, of course. It became even more important that we report transparently, factually, credibly and in a balanced way – responding to the disappointment and anger of many of our stakeholders. It was very tough. We needed to provide a balanced view, clearly communicating what had happened and how we were responding. And, it was essential that our communication didn’t show up as green-washing. Over time, things have rebalanced somewhat and now most of our stakeholders are asking us much the same questions that they would ask of any large oil and gas player." 

Your reporting is so detailed and includes a wide range of local and site-specific reports. How do you manage your reporting cycle? 

"We launch our sustainability report in March, and we immediately begin on the next year’s report by getting feedback from external stakeholders on how they think we’ve covered the material issues. Over the summer, we work with representatives from our policy, risk, government and public affairs, and environmental and social teams, to pull together and prioritize a list of the most important topics. This is really powerful because it offers a broad perspective on the issues and where we are and what we should be doing. From September to December, we work on the report draft and present it to the board committee focused on sustainability issues. We then spend the first part of the year incorporating all feedback before publication."

What's the policy on country reports? 

"Country reports are developed locally by the local businesses. They decide whether they want to publish a local report. For some, it's extremely helpful as an engagement tool. We do not dictate a policy at corporate level, though we do provide a framework for local reporting, for those countries that adopt this practice. We provide positioning on group issues and other guidance. We also review the reports at corporate level before publication, to ensure there is alignment around common issues and approaches. Site reports can be very relevant to the detailed discussion at local level with local stakeholders. In general, countries and sites that report do so as a response to local demand and interest. In Azerbaijan and Angola, for example, we know this is helpful in maintaining positive relations with local institutions and government offices."

I am looking forward to hearing Louise sharing more insights at the Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference next month. 

P.S.

I couldn't resist taking a look at BP's first Environmental and Social Report for 1998, at a time when there was no GRI, no other reporting frameworks and hardly any other companies that even acknowledged the value of transparency, let alone actually put a report together.

It's fascinating to see how advanced this BP report was for its time, and of course, compare it to the latest the 2013 review. They are both 52-53 pages in length, so that's one thing that hasn't changed. Surprisingly perhaps, given the dynamic evolution of reporting and the advances in reporting practice over the years, the pioneering 1998 report has many elements that are still very relevant today.  

The 1998 report contains:

• policies, approaches and commitments - good old DMAs in GRI lingo
• a range of environmental and social data dating back to 1990 in some cases , or later years when data collection commenced - demonstrating continuity and consistency
• a 20 year GHG emissions reduction target - 10% from 1990 to 2010
• several case studies covering different aspects of BP's operations in different parts of the world, supplemented with external commentaries developed through a process of interviews with local stakeholders by an independent consultancy - a precursor to what would today be called "stakeholder engagement"
• an "attestation statement" - external verification and a precursor to what has become known as "assurance"
• a questionnaire with a pre-paid postage form requesting feedback on the report. 

Looking at the BP 2013 Sustainability Review, you can see evidence of the transformation reporting has made over the years. The discussion is far more strategic and much greater context and depth is provided. The upstream-downstream business model demonstrates a higher level of value chain thinking, and the report is far more quantitative, focused and formal. The GRI, IPIECA and UNGC frameworks and principles help structure the disclosures and the metrics. New issues such as fracking and oil sands are explained and BP's approach is described (these issues were not around in the 1998 report). 

In the 1998 report, especially when compared to today's document, there is a sense of almost naive authenticity in a sort of clumsy but trust-building way. 2013's report is far more polished, and while it is direct and balanced, I wonder if recapturing something of the early-day spirit might be an interesting thought for BP and other companies to enhance credibility. To give you a sense of this, here are a few "gems" from the 1998 report:

"Our success depends on our making, and being seen to make, a distinctive contribution to every activity in which we are involved." 

"Ours is an evolving, rather than predetermined or overly bureaucratic, approach. We know that for high standards of ethical and social behaviour to thrive as part of our culture they must be felt and understood by our people. It is more important for it to be in the bloodstream than in a set of manuals."

"Diversity in internal teams (now the norm) is highly valued as it has been seen to result in more creative solutions."

"We wanted this year’s report to include more than just the ‘official’ views of the company."

"Questions of business ethics are often not clear-cut and cannot be resolved by rules alone. With this in mind, during 1998 we revised our Guidelines on Business Conduct, which provide guidance on ethical issues to anyone who has custodianship of the company’s assets or commercial relationships."

"To mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we launched a human rights page on our internet site..."

"Our social impacts can range from positive ones, such as the creation of jobs and prosperity, to less welcome ones, such as fuelling unrealistic employment expectations, exacerbating existing or latent conflicts and disrupting settled ways of life."

Anyway, that nostalgic look at the early days of reporting has given me a new sense of respect for BP and its consistent, ongoing investment in transparency. This doesn't make BP perfect and it doesn't mean that BP should not continue to be held accountable for its far-reaching impacts on society and the environment in all that it does. But, especially after my conversation with Louise Tyson, I am more ready to believe that there is earnest intention behind the written words. 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Need help writing your next Sustainability Report ? Contact Elaine: info@b-yond.biz   

Delivering sustainability to 29 million addresses

Henry VIII ordered the creation of the first national postal service in the UK, which began in 1516 and was called 'The King’s Posts'. A few things have changed since then, including the name of the UK postal service as well as the number of people using it. Today, Royal Mail is the UK’s designated Universal Postal Service Provider and the only company that has the capability to deliver a ‘one-price-goes-anywhere’, six-days-a-week service for a range of letters and parcels to more than 29 million addresses across the UK. General Logistics Systems (GLS) is the Royal Mail's European parcels business with one of the largest parcel delivery networks in Europe handling more than 404 million parcels in 2013-2014.  In October 2013, Royal Mail successfully floated on the London Stock Exchange and was subsequently admitted into the FTSE 100. More than 700,000 members of the public bought shares in Royal Mail. Royal Mail employs more than 160,000 people across the group, making it one of Britain's largest employers. One in every 200 people working in the UK is employed by Royal Mail.

Royal Mail's (GRI B+) twelfth annual Corporate Responsibility Report for 2013-2014 is 94 pages short, and follows a stakeholder-centric format demonstrating responsibility to different stakeholder groups in turn. At the heart of this is a materiality assessment that was concluded with a range of stakeholders in a process that is nicely detailed in the report.

The report includes a clearly presented summary of key achievements in the reporting year, "areas to strengthen", and objectives for the coming year. Achievements include improvement in customer satisfaction, stronger employee safety performance, employing people with disabilities, raising £2 million for Prostate Cancer UK charity and reducing GHG emissions, water consumption and waste to landfill. A small but significant example of environmental culture change for resource conservation is the fact that Royal Mail uses 15% fewer rubber bands than in 2010-2011. Sounds like a small detail, but it's all about the daily practice of thousands of people every day.

At the fourth annual Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference in London on 24th February 2015, we will be hearing from the Group Director of Safety, Health, Wellbeing & Sustainability at Royal Mail Group, Shaun Davis. Shaun joined Royal Mail in 2012, and prior to that, he worked in the construction and waste management sectors. I took the opportunity to have a little chat with Shaun ahead of the conference.

ME: How did you get started at the Royal Mail?
SHAUN: Originally, I went to university in order to become a teacher. Later, I realized didn't want to teach, it didn't really feel like my vocation. I was happy to have an opportunity to use my teaching qualifications in a safety and health consultancy and it was there that I got involved in the environmental and sustainability world. As part of my ongoing learning in this field, I enrolled for the WWF ‘One Planet' sustainability-focused Master Degree in Business Administration (MBA). I felt this would give me a stronger basis to have conversations with business leaders in a way they would understand. It was really, really useful. I have been with Royal Mail for 2.5 years now and it's a truly exciting place to be.

ME: What have you achieved in 2.5 years? 
SHAUN: The Royal Mail is a really large organization, it takes several months just to find your way around and get to know what the key issues are. But I think the main thing I can be proud of so far is making the safety team a multi-disciplined team. We have to understand that each business has many different elements, and there's a lot of mileage in integration. Upskilling my team in the area of health and environment and interacting with all parts of the business has been significant progress. We have a service-oriented approach. Our roles only exists as long as there is a business to support, and the service we provide must support the business and not hinder it.

ME: Got an example? 
SHAUN: One of the biggest areas of impact, risk and opportunity is energy efficiency. We operate many processing plants for letters and parcels, and we are delivering mail to 29 million addresses six days a week. We have a massive transportation infrastructure and one of the biggest fleet operations in the UK. We have focused on energy and fuel efficiency as a key priority. Our vehicles have in-cab enhancements using new technologies to ensure efficient fuel consumption and we have provided drivers with fuel-efficiency driving training. Because, in such a large organization, things take time, you have to realize you can't do everything at once. You have to focus on the things that make a difference in different areas of work. We do not design broad scale programs for the entire organization. We prefer to work on an issue by issue basis, addressing the needs as and where they are identified. It means we have to be very clear about both the business and the sustainability connection in order to make the right selection of priorities and allocate resources appropriately. 

ME: What are your views on sustainability reporting?
SHAUN: Our CSR team pulls the report together. I provide relevant input from my area. I think reporting should be forward looking as well as providing historical information. A report should be easy to read and you should be able to get an overview of what the organization does as a whole – a sort of a dashboard view of a company. An interesting point, for example, if you look at Royal Mail and its business value proposition, is that we have a challenging few years ahead. The letter market is declining. Online interactions have taken over the traditional letter market. We need to be considering how our value proposition is changing and how our business will look in the next ten years. We employ around 150,000 people in the UK so we need to have answers to these questions. It's a big responsibility.

ME: Are consumers interested?
SHAUN: We have some brilliant customers, including large scale corporate customers. Some members of the public take an interest, but mainly, it is our shareholders who need our report to review our performance and inform their stakeholders about their own performance and make business decisions. We are a recognizable, respected brand in the community, people look to us to give them a sense of security. They want us to be looking after their interests. In general, they are not looking for our sustainability report, but for the way we deal with them on a daily basis. We are seen as an iconic brand that has a big impact in the community. For some elderly people, the postman might be only the personal interaction they have on a daily basis. For others, a postman in the area might have a broader safety and security benefits, for example, when there are floods or snow, or other reasons that people are housebound in rural areas, the postman may be the one who comes around every day and keeps an eye on things, making sure that people are ok. This may not be in their job description, but there is a natural relationship that builds up in different local communities that prevents people from becoming totally isolated. This is part of the social value we bring, in addition to the major economic contribution we make to the UK economy, and it's what our consumers notice and appreciate.

****

I hope you'll consider joining us in London in February, to engage with, in addition to Shaun, a fabulous line-up, including: 

• Mardi McBrien, Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB)
• Crystal Crawford, Liberty Global
• Paul Toyne, Balfour Beatty (see my chat with Paul here)
• Simon Howard, UK Sustainable Investment & Finance Association (UKSIF)
• Nelmara Arbex, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
• Katie Buchanan, Virgin Media 
• Irene Jakobi, Sustainability Manager, Telekom Austria
• Neil Barrett, Sodexo  (see my chat with Neil here)
• Louise Tyson,  BP 
• Sarah Grey, International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)
• Megan Mitrevski Dale, Coca-Cola Enterprises

See you there? 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Check out our G4 Report Expert Analysis Service - for published G4 reports or pre-publication - write to Elaine at info@b-yond.biz to help make your G4 reporting  even better. 

419,317 reasons to report on sustainability

At Sodexo, every employee counts, and the company aims to engage every employee in the organization's corporate responsibility efforts. Sodexo is a great example of where the reporting process has become an empowering element of corporate practice, rather than just a document to show to external stakeholders at the end of the annual cycle.

Sodexo is one of the largest companies in the world by employee headcount (the 18th largest private employer), with 419,317 people on board at the end of fiscal 2014, working across more than 33,200 sites. More than 95% of Sodexo employees are in daily contact with clients and serve 75 million consumers each day in 80 countries.  Sodexo provides "Quality of Life services" which includes diversified outsourcing services, benefits and reward services, and personal and home services, adding value to the work and well-being of people in a wide variety of organizations from offices to hospitals to universities and more. In this size and scale of organization, implementing a global strategy is complex and not without a range of unique challenges, especially when most of the sites your employees operate from belong to clients.

Sodexo's reporting reflects this size and scale. Headquartered in France, Sodexo publishes an annual integrated report (Registration Document) that conforms to the French Grenelle II disclosure requirements, and also includes just about everything everyone might want to know, and yet, remains accessible and interesting to read (all 372 pages... well, almost all). Aside from financials and Grenelle II, the Registration Document references GRI G4 guidelines, ISO 26000 standard and the UN Global Compact principles, bringing everything together in a single content index.

What makes this report fascinating, however, is the way sustainability is embedded as part of the core approach as well as a business discipline that is managed and led right from the tone at the top. With a business mission that is a social mission as well - to improve the Quality of Life of our employees and all those we serve - applicable both internally and externally, Sodexo's sustainable development journey is aligned in all respects. The opening statement from the company's founder and chairman, Pierre Bellon, is well worth a read - describing a life-philosophy as well as an approach to sustainable business growth that many would do well to learn from. His personal and business insights are quite inspiring - including ten important trends that are shaping the way business develops, and five important priorities for Sodexo.

Within the report, there are many (many!) short case studies and insights about how Sodexo's work is making a difference ... from supporting the IBM LEED certified Technology Center in Chile, to winning a workplace foodservices award in Scotland to providing Quality of Life services including health and safety programs for offshore drilling fleets to foodservices for the mining industry in Mozambique to supporting prisoner rehabilitation in UK prisons to supporting environmentally childcare facilities in France. The diversity of clients and nature of services provided is quite incredible. And while these are all core business services for Sodexo, they all fall under the umbrella of improving Quality of Life. That also makes them sustainability services.

Sodexo's CSR approach is brought together under its corporate responsibility roadmap: the Better Tomorrow Plan, which has its own dedicated section in the Registration Document a robust section on Sodexo's website. With many stories of how the Better Tomorrow Plan is put into practice around the world, the Registration Document details Sodexo's actions within its priorities to employees, promote nutrition, health and wellness, support local communities and protect the environment. The company also maintains and hosts a separate, independent website that presents thought leadership relating to Quality of Life.

A chat with Sodexo

In the run-up to the fourth annual Smarter Sustainability Conference in London on 24th February 2015, which I chair, I took the opportunity to talk to Neil Barrett,  Sodexo's Group Vice President Sustainable Development. 

ME: How do you get such a massive, sprawling and complex organization like Sodexo aligned behind a cohesive sustainability approach?

NEIL: "One of the key developments of the group has been the greater alignment on sustainable development actions. Some years ago, we created the Better Tomorrow Plan. It was eighteen months in the making. We undertook a huge engagement and dialogue program with stakeholder groups to make sure we understood the issues that were important to them. When we launched this roadmap in 2009, one of the things we did right, in retrospect, was to devote the first year to getting our people on board. Because of scale of breadth of our organization, we took a solid twelve months to engage people internally on why this was important, what our priorities are and the commitments we undertook. That was time well invested. It also allowed us to establish a baseline on our various commitments across 33,000 different sites where our people work. Because we are represented on client sites, the reporting challenge for us is heightened versus organizations that have operations within facilities they directly control or operate. As we provide our services on client sites, it took some time to understand what we should report on, what we can control and influence and how we should measure our performance for our own benefit and for the benefit of our clients."

ME: How do you manage to maintain consistency and discipline around reporting and performance management?

NEIL: "We have two kinds of indicators: Progress indicators and impact indicators. In the area of progress indicators, we have created a level of awareness around expected behaviors - what actions our employees can take on site to help improve our clients' sustainability performance. We have equipped our site managers with all they need to support sustainability processes at clients' sites and manage how we engage with the client. On the impact indicators side, we look to see how we measure the impact of our actions for our clients or consumers. Additionally, we established an effective governance structure right from the beginning. It has stood us fairly well over the past five years and we are able to report our progress in a consistent way. Every year we survey all our sites for information about their sustainable development activities and this is then consolidated at a regional and group level. We get a range of information about the environmental aspects of our activities and impacts on our clients. We put this system in place back in 2009. Actually it has stood us in very good stead for the introduction of the French Commercial Code Grenelle II Act in France in 2012. We already had everything in place to be able to report."

ME: Is all the effort collecting data worth it?

NEIL: "Each year we review our progress and what we have achieved, but it is not just about reporting. It's about engagement. Our reporting processes help our people understand the reasons they are taking action, what areas they should be focusing on and where they need to go if they need guidance. The data we collect helps us create site-based reports. Each site manager gets a report that is designed for sharing with the client, showing comparative performance and benchmarks with other sites. It shows how the site is performing or even under-performing. The site managers are able to provide clients with details that help engage the client in discussion with our site teams. This becomes an ongoing dialogue which ensures we all focus on achieving the right outcomes for all parties. This goes right back to the launch of the Better Tomorrow Plan and its governance. We have more than 100 Better Tomorrow Champions in the business who help facilitate these processes. You can imagine that they are very active at reporting time! For us, this is all about engagement, reporting, serving our clients better, empowering our people and making a positive contribution. Ultimately it supports improving Quality of Life. So, yes, it's worth it."

ME: What else has worked well?

NEIL: "One of the very pleasing outcomes this year has been that Sodexo was awarded Sector Leadership in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the 10th consecutive year. As standards and expectations have evolved we have been able to maintain our industry leadership position. Such external recognition validates our approach and efforts and also reinforces the fact that we are moving in the right direction. We were also awarded this year the sector leader and most-improved company in the CDP Forests Report. And many other recognitions. I have to say that this is also increasingly being viewed by clients as important. It's a ticket to play. Clients want to deal with companies that can demonstrate a commitment to sustainability and corporate responsibility and can assist them in their sustainability journey."

ME: How do you manage to report everything in one integrated document? You have so much going on….

NEIL: "It's been a challenge to pull everything together in the one document, but we have invested the time to consolidate everything into one report. We used to produce a number of different annual reports. Consolidating everything is much clearer both for us and for our audiences. The drive for simplification has helped. With a myriad of metrics, it helps give us a better sense of what we are doing and achieving. We have also tried to make it accessible – communicating in a way that people can understand. We are now in the process of doing a materiality refresh… some themes have moved around but, by and large, the issues and priorities mainly are just as valid today as they were some years ago. Some of our targets will be completed by 2015, and we are now looking towards setting new ones for the coming years to continue our progress."

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I am looking forward to meeting Neil at the 4th annual Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference.

He'll be speaking on "Leading ways to measure corporate responsibility impacts". Judging by our conversation, he'll have a whole lot more to share. Don't miss it!

PS: I want to thank John Friedman, Sodexo's Corporate Responsibility Communications Director, who is also long-time social media buddy and prominent writer, blogger and commentator, for connecting me with Neil. Check out John's writings at the Huffington Post.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Check out our G4 Report Expert Analysis Service - for published G4 reports or pre-publication - write to Elaine at info@b-yond.biz to help make your G4 reporting  even better.