Transparency is an asset

Transparency is an asset. That's what we believe here at Beyond Business and at the CSR-Reporting Blog. That's why, back in 2009, we developed the Transparency Index of leading publicly traded companies, analyzing the quality of sustainability transparency on their corporate websites. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, we analyzed the top 100 companies in our home market, Israel. However, the Transparency Index is a globally applicable index, which is equally valid for all companies in all sectors, providing complete comparability on what matters equally as much as what companies are doing to advance their own sustainability and that of the planet: how effectively their corporate websites make this information available and accessible to their local and global stakeholders. Therefore, in 2011, we formed a partnership with the Center for CSR Development in Ukraine, and, after updating the methodology to include some modifications reflecting our experience of performing the analyses over several years, we have started to analyze the leading companies in several additional countries around the globe. We are on our way to developing the first truly Global Transparency Index.

In 2011, we published The Transparency Index for the largest publicly traded companies in South Africa and in the UK. This year, 2012, after slightly modifying the methodology to reflect an improved balance of the Transparency Index four dimensions (reporting, content, navigation, accessibility), we have published a Transparency Index for the largest publicly traded companies in two countries: Denmark and the U.S.

In Denmark, Novo Nordisk takes the trophy with a leading 92% transparency, reflecting top level reporting on sustainability issues and great performance in the other three transparency dimensions on the Novo Nordisk website.  A Twitter stream, with a clearly explained policy, video content and even sustainability games in business ethics, climate change and economics and health. Novo Nordisk is way ahead of the average transparency of the top 25 companies in Denmark which ranks at 57.3%.

Here is how the top ten in Denmark looks:

The full report of the Transparency Index in Denmark can be downloaded here.

In the U.S. our findings are that companies are a little more transparent. Average transparency for the top 25 in the U.S. is 69% . Intel takes the trophy here with 91.5% transparency, reflecting sustainability reporting, a highly informative sustainability website, video content, a great  CSR at Intel blog , a report builder and an online feedback form.

Here is the top ten in the U.S.:

The full Transparency Index Report for the U.S. can be downloaded here.

The full methodology is transparently (!) described in each report.

While it is true that transparency is only half the picture - it's an important half of the picture. Transparency does not substitute for good performance, but it is necessary as a tool to inform about performance. Transparency is a public statement of commitment to sustainability, encapsulating both a declaration and a promise, a demonstration of serious intent and most importantly, an invitation to stakeholders to read, review and react. As the world embraces digital formats and interactions,  web-based sustainability transparency has an important place in the shaping of sustainability practices.

Watch this space for more countries  to follow in the Global Transparency Index  (and for news of the launch of our new GTI website) and for further analyses as the more countries are added to the mix.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices  Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   on Twitter or via my business website www.b-yond.biz/en  (Beyond Business, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

B2B Yes you can! Danisco shows how.

It is quite a pleasure to write about a recently published Sustainability Report - this time from Danisco, the Danish bio-based food ingredients supplier. It is a pleasure not only because the Danisco report is somewhat different from most of the reports you will see flying around these days, but also, because, by way of disclosure, I supported Danisco in the development of this particular report. Don't get me wrong - Danisco did all the hard work - I came in at the back end of the process to offer some specific assistance to the reporting team. Anyway, let me tell you a little about Danisco and their 2010 Sustainability Report. 

Danisco uses raw materials from nature and transforms them into ingredients which contribute to the improved sustainability of our lives - mainly ingredients which improve the quality and health properties of what we eat, but also of things we wear, drive, use and interact with in many different ways. In fact, I had been familiar with Danisco as a food ingredients supplier - I had no idea of the wide range of applications their products can serve. Danisco is based in sunny Copenhagen, Denmark, employes 6,800 people, and operates from over 49 manufacturing sites around the world. Danisco’s ingredients are used globally in a wide range of industries including bakery, dairy, beverages,  animal feed, laundry detergents, tyre manufacture, and bioethanol. Danisco's Sustainability Director, Jeff Hogue, is a frequent social-media-ite and tweets as @JeffreyHogue.

The most significant thing about Danisco's sustainability impacts are that they are greatest once the shipments have left the plant. Many companies' significant impacts are indirect in this way. But Danisco's impacts are two degrees removed - first they sell to manufacturing businesses, then the manufacturing businesses sell their brands to the final consumer. So, although Danisco might not be a household name (well, except perhaps, in Copenhagen),  Danisco makes a far greater impact on our lives than you might guess, doing so through the way the Company develops innovative technology and new products, and supports and collaborates with its customers who make the end products we consume. Take bread, for instance. Danisco tells us that  "In the UK alone, more than 320,000 tonnes of bread is discarded each year because it has lost its freshness. Methane produced by that waste equates to more than 1.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents." Addition of Danisco enzymes can help  keep bread fresher up to seven days longer, potentially saving two million tonnes of flour per year and making more bread available with no increase in flour. In the UK alone. Think of that as applicable worldwide. Big numbers. How many times have you thrown out bread that became stale and unappetizing ? It happens, right ? Danisco doesn't make bread. But through Danisco's work with bread-manufacturing companies and bakeries, the consumers have access to a much more sustainable product and lifestyle.

Another example? Take this story about milk in Kenya: " In 2007, worldwide milk production is estimated to be 655 million tonnes with over 30% produced in developing countries. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forecasts that demand for milk in the developing world will double by 2030. Developing countries are not self-sufficient with milk, and dairy imports to developing countries in value terms grew by 43% between 1998 and 2001.The vast majority of the milk in developing countries is produced on small-scale farms (fewer than five milking cows), without cooling systems. The FAO estimates that 25-50% of the milk from small-scale farmers is wasted." Danisco is working on a technology involving adding an enzyme to the milk at the point of production which would extend the life of milk for 12-15 hours without cooling - thereby avoiding most of the waste in this supply system. This development offers a tremendous economic, social and environmental benefit, a true sustainability springboard. Danisco does not produce milk either. As consumers, we are happily unaware of the positive impact on the sustainability of our lives that the Danisco range of products offer, yet we gain the benefit in many of our everyday consumption patterns. One final example of a super development is in the area of car tyre production - in a collaborative project with Goodyear, Danisco is developing a bio-based, renewable synthetic rubber for use in car tyres with an investment of $50 million, to support our move away from dependency on fossil-based fuels. Renewable car tyres. Danisco are not in the tyre business, but when you are taking your new hybrid out for a spin, you will be able to rest assured that fuel consumption is low not only in the engine but also in the road-grip. These examples represent the core "ingredients for sustainability" proposition that is the backbone of Danisco's sustainability strategy and 2010 report.

Danisco's reporting squarely places these issues in context. Going way beyond the Company's internal, direct, impacts - and these are reported comprehensively (massive reductions in waste, total carbon emissions, water consumption and wastewater generation in the environmental sphere and significant positive workplace improvements including reduced accident rates etc,)  Danisco's report addresses overarching challenges our global society faces in the run-up to 2050, where the global population will increase to 9 billion (from 6.8 billion) and will need solutions to food security issues, dependence on fossil fuels and petroleum-based chemicals, and  growing health issues. Danisco explains the naure of these challenges, the associated risks, and strategy that Danisco has developed to adapt its core business proposition to support finding the right solutions - the right "ingredients for sustainability". 

As mentioned, I am entirely not impartial in relation to this particular Company report, though I spare you many other interesting aspects that I would have been pleased to mention (I know blog-readers have short-attention spans) but I hope this will not prevent you from taking a look at the Danisco report and pondering the broader issues we face as a society and the role that responsible businesses play, even those whose brand-names doen't jump out at us from the supermarket shelf or the car showroom. And when B2B Companies tell you that CSR doesn't apply to them because they don't produce consumer-facing brands, you can quote the Danisco report as absolute proof of the opposite.

elaine cohen is a CSR Consultant, Sustainability Reporter and Co-Manager of Beyond Business, a leading social and environmental consulting and reporting firm. Visit our website at www.b-yond.biz/en

Buzz No 3: COP this !

We've gone Beyond, we've been through complicity … now it's time for … coffee… nope, not yet …it's time for COP. Lots of buzz about COP in Istanbul. Actually, there are two types of COP. There is COP, or even notable COP. And COP15. (Don't ask me about COP 2 – 14). So let's make a start with plain ole COP and then move upstage to 15.

COP = Communication On Progress
This is what participants do once they have confirmed their participation in the Global Compact of the United Nations. You all know the Global Compact, right? It's a framework of 10 principles relating to the responsibilities of business to uphold human rights and labor standards, and to work to improve environmental impacts and anti-corruption. The UNGC has over 5,000 participants from all over the world and is supported by a web of networks who advance active application of the principles. It was in this context that I joined the Human Rights Working Group meetings last week in Istanbul. A COP is a mandatory annual communication for participating companies to publish the ways in which they are advancing the UNGC principles. Guidance on how to write a COP can be found here. A "notable" COP is one which the UNGC team finds to be particularly comprehensive and clear, and a model for others, for example here. Finally, businesses which do not communicate get kicked out. Which is as it should be, right ? COP is a kind of voluntary corporate disclosure, i.e. a report, which means that COPs fit perfectly into this reporting blog. Might just do a little COP analysis over the next few weeks. Once i get past the buzz.

COP15 = Copenhagen 15
This is way the climate-connected refer to the meeting which will take place in Copenhagen (COPenhagen .. COP … get it ? ), the United Nations Climate Change Conference on December 7 to December 18, 2009. It's a kinda climate change annual hot spot (geez, that pun thing again). The Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997, sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the rate of an average 5% against 1990 levels between 2008-2012. At the 13th conference in Bali it was decided to work towards an agreement for the subsequent years. This agreement is to be negotiated in Copenhagen in 2009. Stakes are pretty high, it seems, as the influences on emission reduction decisions are dominated by economic-geo-political decisions, especially relating to China and India. By now, if you follow my blog, you will realize that I am not terribly competent about things environmental, so I contented myself with a quick look at the conference guide. Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy says : “We must move the world from an era of talk to an era of change” In this spirit, it is important to know that attending Heads of State will be offered eco-friendly transportation, and other conference travel will be offset. Towels in hotels will be shared on a one-to-four-rooms basis, and specially constructed conference seating will enable participants to peddle in-situ to generate energy to power their laptops. (so what if I got a little carried away). Follow the conference on Twitter , Facebook , take the climate quiz (I got 7 out of 10, which proves that this quiz was designed with first graders in mind, and it helps if you are Danish). I can't help being impressed with the locations of all these climate change conferences: Berlin, Rio, Kyoto, Bali, Copenhagen, New Delhi, Poznan, Marrakesh, Milan, Nairobi, Montreal etc … how about next year in Darfur, Mogadishu, Gaza, Karachi, Teheran or Baghdad ? Anyway, you have until Dec 7 to place your bets on COP15 outcomes. Cop that?

What else was buzzing in Istanbul ? Stick around to find out. It was a really buzzful week.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm based in Israel. Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Denmark does it ... Apple doesn't

There's always good news and bad news.... that's what happens when TWO headlines come up on your radar.

First .. the good news headline:
"European neighbours and multinationals will be watching closely as Danish government passes legislation requiring firms to produce CSR reports " The law doesn't require the 1,000 largest firms to actually DO anything to advance their CSR practices, but it does require them to report. Isn't that interesting ? It means that all those that have nothing to say, but have to report, will show up as less attractive. Which perhaps will prove the point that reporting is a catalyst for action. If you have to report, you first have to do something to report about. The Danish government says that this is likely to enhance Danist business as an an attractive investment proposition. This is based on the assumption that Danish businesses are very csr-worthy, but they just dont tell people about it. Which is absolutely a key part of social reponsibility - accountability is responsibility plus transparency. Well done Danes.

I took a quick trip to corporate register (CorporateRegister.com) and found that there is quite a good level of reporting in that country. Denmark is ranked 17th with around 500 reports issued since 1992, after US, UK, Japan, Germany, Australia, Italy and others. Some of reports to come out of Denmark include the best integrated reporters Novo Nordisk , Lego and others, unpronouncable for non-Danes.

Now for the BAD news:
Apple's launch of new green products at this week's Macworld show has been overshadowed by the company's attempts to quash shareholder requests for more corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. The Apple company says that producing another report would produce little added value and require time and expense.

It's a good thing they are not based in Denmark, right ?