GRI: SASB: The Sector Specificity Question

So, since my last post broke the sound barrier with hundreds of reactions which mainly expressed support for the notion that collaboration rather than confrontation wouldn't be such a bad thing, I will delve a little deeper into one aspect of The Great GRI-SASB Showdown which didn't receive that much airtime in the multiple debates about mandatory or voluntary ESG disclosure. It's the question of specificity. Dr Madelyn Antoncic, SASB Chief Executive, made this point:

"SASB’s unique approach is well aligned with growing consensus among market participants that in order to integrate ESG matters into governance, strategy, risk management and performance monitoring, consistent with the TCFD recommendations, sustainability must be viewed on an industry specific level........ Indeed in order for any approach for corporate sustainability to be useful, it must address idiosyncratic, not systemic, risks. In other words, it must address not just climate change but climate change industry specific manifestations."

Now, I agree with this up to a point. I agree that business is done in industries and sectors, and each has their own specific material impacts. Having said that, business is done primarily by companies, and each company is unique in structure, geography, size, strategy, leadership etc., which means that its material impacts are also unique. So using pre-fab materiality à la SASB may well serve as a safety net to ensure relevant topics by industry are not overlooked, but it may not serve as a comprehensive basis for disclosure for every company in that industry. It also could lead to cutting corners where pre-fab materiality is blindly accepted without due process.

Nonetheless, SASB has done what GRI failed to do. Sector-based disclosures never reached the top of GRI's to-do list. In fact, I wrote about this back in 2013, in a post entitled "Will SASB make G4 redundant?" where I looked at the implications of the new SASB Standards on a specific sector basis. My closing line in that post is actually no less relevant today than it was then: ".....we perhaps ought to remind ourselves what Sustainability Reporting was designed to do in the first place. Account for company impacts on all stakeholders. Both GRI and SASB have an important contribution, I feel. The shame is that both appear to live on different planets, while the companies that are reporting are all on the same planet, and, more importantly, we are too!" Plus ça change.....

While SASB has developed standards for 77 industries in 11 sectors, GRI has 10 sector disclosures. There are differences in the approach to both - in fact, what GRI calls a sector, SASB mainly calls an industry. Oh dear, and I thought this was going to be easy....

I decided to see if I could substantiate the intuitive remarks I made in my last post: "Instead of debating which one is less perfect, whether they should be mandated or not and which definition of materiality should apply, GRI and SASB should roll up their sleeves and get down to some serious work with companies and with each other to help drive better implementation of sustainable development practices and disclosure. If we do nothing more than ensure existing standards are fully adopted by all companies, consistently, auditably and comprehensively, perhaps with a few tweaks here and there, we will have done a lot." In other words, let's work together with what we have and make it work. At some point, you just gotta stop checking if the oven works and make a start on the cooking. 

There is a small number of companies who use SASB Standards. Not quite enough yet to consider whether this enables sector comparability or even use of similar standards, but enough for me to handpick a few reports that cover both. I decided to check a few things out:

(1) Are SASB Standards really a useful tool? To what extent is there more information than that required by a GRI report which is well prepared? In checking the delta when reporting both SASB and GRI, what value does sector-specific SASB add over and above what is already in GRI standards?
(2) What does sector specificity actually add? Is there a meaningful level of specificity that makes it easy for companies to recognize themselves in the sector?
(3) Who needs to budge to turn this into one Standard that's useful for all? Haha. No-one wants to budge. But maybe they should.

I'll start with Bloomberg. With Bloomberg putting all their weight behind the development of the SASB Standards, it's clear that they would use them, even if as a privately held company, Bloomberg is not required to go the full Monty.

Bloomberg's 2018 Impact Report was prepared in accordance with (1) GRI Standards Comprehensive Option (including the Media Sector Disclosures) (2) SASB Standards (3) FSB Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) guidelines and (4) "select content from CDP". That's four reporting frameworks. Convergence, anyone?

Supplementing this report, Bloomberg publishes a GRI Content Index (including the Media Sector Disclosures) and a SASB Disclosure. The SASB disclosure includes metrics from three separate SASB Standards:

• Internet and Media Services
• Media  and Entertainment 
• Professional and Commercial Services

Now, this is where the difference in approach start to show up. GRI's Media Sector Disclosures are integrated throughout the existing GRI Standard with some additional Sector-Specific Disclosures. In various sections throughout the GRI Standards, additional sector-relevant elements are integrated (noted by a little green + sign) or new elements are added (noted in green).  (NB: This still relates to G4, and has not been updated to reflect the changes in GRI Standards, but the approach is the same).

SASB Standards are all standalone. So, when Bloomberg decides to report against three SASB Standards, it is actually duplicating several pieces of information. For example, you can find data on workforce diversity included three times in the same Bloomberg SASB disclosure document - one for each of the three SASB Standards that Bloomberg identified as relevant to their business.

And the funny thing is, that all this data is reported as well already in Bloomberg's GRI Content Index:

I worked through every single Bloomberg SASB disclosure against all three SASB Standards to try to establish the delta. I found that there is extremely little in the SASB disclosures that is not already reported in the GRI Content Index, or would have been reported if the GRI Content Index were applied in full. Environmental data... it's in both; data privacy - it's in both; data security - it's in both - although there are a few metrics that SASB includes that are not in GRI. On the topic of employment, SASB asks for employee engagement measures (that GRI does not specifically cover). All in all, it would take very little to combine these GRI and SASB Standards to achieve sector-specificity with no duplication and enable relevance for all stakeholders including investors.

Here's another report. Apache Corporation 2018 Sustainability Report

Apache's report follows (1) GRI Standards, Core Option (2) Oil and Gas Industry Guidance on Voluntary Sustainability Reporting (2015) developed by IPIECA (3) SASB’s Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Standard and (4) the Disclosing the Facts framework which is an annual investor scorecard ranking of the 30 largest oil and gas companies engaged in hydraulic fracturing.

Again, I analyzed the SASB disclosure to assess if it includes more than is delivered by a regular GRI-based Sustainability Report. Note that, in this case, Apache does not use the GRI Oil and Gas Sector Disclosure, which, as with the media sector, integrates disclosures throughout the Standard and adds sector-specific additional topics.

So, what about the delta? For several metrics, such as GHG emissions, biodiversity impacts, community relations, and health and safety etc., there is no meaningful difference between the Standards. In others, there are differences. For example, on the topic of indigenous peoples: GRI focuses on violations of indigenous rights in the main GRI Standard, and on disputes in the additional sector disclosure:

SASB focuses on operations in proximity to indigenous lands and engagement processes.

Apache does not report these indicators, neither GRI nor SASB. Interestingly, APACHE does report against an IPIECA indicator relating to indigenous peoples, with a Statement on Indigenous Peoples representing Apache's approach.

So, while Apache has made significant efforts to deliver high-quality transparency, it is clear that the multiple standards and frameworks cause duplication and fragmentation of reporting requirements. However, Apache reports neither Standard in full, disclosing against 13 of the 27 metrics in the SASB Oil and Gas Standard, and 17 of the 33 Topic Specific Standards of GRI and none of the sector-specific topics. The SASB Standard offers some fine-tuning of disclosures for this industry, but nothing that is monumentally significant versus a fully reported GRI Standards-based disclosure.

One more? Let's try a different sector. Food. I LOVE food (especially ice cream).

Kellogg's 2018-2019 Corporate Responsibility Report also uses multiple sustainability disclosure frameworks:

• GRI Standards including the Food Processing Sector Disclosures (downloadable Content Index)
• SASB Food Processing Standard (downloadable index)
• CDP Climate and Water Disclosures
• Cross-references in the GRI Index to SDGs and the UN Global Compact Principles

Should we count that as six frameworks?

Here again, this company has worked hard to address the multiple reporting demands of different frameworks and organize disclosures in the least confusing way for stakeholders. Not an easy task to avoid the duplication and fragmentation that we have already seen in the two reports above.

Again, my focus here is on the delta between SASB Standards requirements and GRI. In this sector, there are some significant differences. For example:

Food safety: This is material for Kellogg's, and also highlighted in the GRI Food Sector Disclosures, SASB includes two indicators that link to external audit by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) GRI on the other hand references external standards certified by an independent third party according to internationally recognized food safety management system standards, leaving companies to choose which certifications.
Food waste: This is noted as material for Kellogg's but appears neither in the GRI Standards nor in the SASB Standard.
Climate change: This is not included in SASB Standards for this sector. Energy management is included, but not climate change impacts. As Kellogg's has noted climate change as material, then GRI Standards requires disclosure on climate change impacts. I find it hard to understand how investors assessing a company such as Kellogg's would not be interested in climate change data.
Diversity and inclusion: This is stated as material for Kellogg's but is not included in the SASB Food Processing Sector Standard. It is part of GRI Standards.
Packaging lifecycle management: This is included in the SASB Standard and is a relevant addition for this sector.  It is not included in GRI Standards (beyond regular disclosures about waste) although Kellogg's CR Report contains information about the sustainability of its packaging and lifecycle impacts.
Animal Welfare: The GRI Food Processing Sector disclosure is the only standard that points this out specifically. The SASB standard does not address this and Kellogg's maintain it is not material to their business.

Across both the SASB and the GRI Food Processing Sector Standards, and Kellogg's own list of material topics, there is a significant degree of overlap, but also some areas of difference. Does the SASB Standard add much? In this sector, the metrics are a little more industry-focused though it strikes me as odd that there are no SASB metrics relating to people, labor or human rights.

Kellogg's own material topics, SASB's Food Processing Standard topics and GRI Food Processing Sector Disclosures (additional to and incorporated in the general GRI Standards)

Back to my three questions:
(1) Are SASB Standards really a useful tool? 
(2) What does sector specificity actually add? 
(3) Who needs to budge to turn this into one Standard that's useful for all?

And my three answers:

(1) I cannot speak for the investor community, for whom SASB standards were devised. If the idea was that all the topics in the SASB Standards are "financially" material, then it's rather odd that very few of the SASB metrics I have seen actually correlate to any sort of financial measure. My observation is that where a company reports GRI in full, including any available sector disclosures, the additional disclosures required by SASB may not add a lot. For a company not using GRI, and using SASB for sustainability disclosures in its annual report, then it may not be enough. Having said that, the overview of what's most important by industry is a useful reference for any company conducting a materiality assessment.

(2) Sector specificity is a worthy pursuit, especially when companies are not rigorous in their materiality assessments. Kellogg's, for example, presents what I feel is a balanced and representative set of material topics, covering both the operational and purpose-driven aspects of its business. Apache's material topics are more generic, so the SASB Standard could be a useful safety net. However, in this case, as is the case in several other sectors, there is another reporting framework developed by the industry itself, IPIECA which tends to address the sector-specific requirements.

(3) I think both GRI and SASB need to budge. As can be seen from just 3 examples, reporting is fragmented, duplicated and yes, confusing. Just working out who reports what against which Standards was a nightmare. All three companies made valiant efforts to navigate these frameworks and deliver robust disclosures. We should not let the question of financial materiality divert us from the real questions of who should report what. There is room to develop a set of jointly-owned GRI-SASB Standards that would include (1) a core of disclosures and metrics on universally critical sustainability topics that every company should report, material or otherwise (2) a menu of core sector specific disclosures that all companies in a particular industry should report (3) a menu of optional metrics and indicators that companies can disclose in addition, if they or their stakeholders define them as material. What's important here is not only what to report but how to report, that is, by prescribing the methodologies required for each metric reported. That would enable the rigor and comparability that SASB maintains is so lacking. And in each industry, the industry associations, such as IPIECA, have an important role to play as well.

Ultimately, I think we have everything we need - except a spirit of collaboration. Combining the best of GRI, SASB and industry-specific experts can be an exercise in cooperation, not reinvention. By working together, we can totally simplify the landscape and make it much easier for reporters to report and users to use the information. Why is this such a big deal? Why is it so contentious?

But that's only the first step. The second step is doing more to encourage companies to fully implement these simplified reporting Standards in a consistent and auditable way. I don't mean through external assurance but through internal rigor and accountability. Both GRI and SASB are far too eager to hype up the numbers of how many companies are using their Standards. Neither is prepared to really buckle down and assess the way the Standards are being implemented or call out companies that are doing a pick'n'mix job of reporting what's easy or available or irrelevant.

The GRI-SASB Game of Thrones Showdown I witnessed at the Asia Sustainability Reporting Summit earlier this month did not offer much hope of collaboration. Apparently, the comfort zone is exactly where they are. Unfortunately, it's a very uncomfort zone for everyone having to deal with the fallout.


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Owner/Manager of Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired Sustainability Strategy and Reporting firm having supported 100 client reports to date; author of three books and several chapters on Sustainability Reporting and the Human Resources connection to CSR; frequent chair and speaker at sustainability events and judge in several sustainability awards programs each year. Contact me via Twitter , LinkedIn or via Beyond Business     

Six ways to say sustainability at Strauss Group

Strauss Group is a food and beverage company, dedicated to enriching and improving people's lives through our fresh, delicious, nutritious, and innovative products. The Group's portfolio of five companies provides a response to two leading trends in food and beverage consumption: Health & Wellness, and Fun & Indulgence. Strauss Group is active in 24 countries, generates more than $2 billion in consolidated sales and employs more than 12,000 people. Last month, Strauss Group published its eighth annual Sustainability Report. (Disclosure: Strauss Group is my client and we supported the preparation of this report and two prior reports.)

This is Strauss Group's first report following the publication of the Group's 2020 Sustainability Strategy last year. The strategy is based on three degrees of impact supported by three levels of performance. 

Degrees of impact reflect the progression of Strauss Group's impacts on different stakeholder groups and the degree to which the Group is in a direct position to create positive value. The first degree is colleagues, the most direct relationship of all between the Group and any of its stakeholders and through whom all our other stakeholder groups are reached. The second degree of impact is on consumers, whose lives are enriched by the products Strauss Group develops and markets. The third degree of impact is citizenship - impacts in the supply chain, in the environment and in local communities. Each strategy dimension is backed by targets - some of which require the Group to meet expected standards of behavior, such as upholding ethical conduct and governance, while other targets require a stretch to exceed past performance or to lead the market with performance that is among the best-in-class in the industry.

Strauss Group's 2014 Sustainability Report was written in three broad parts aligning with the strategic approach. Within this, six most material impacts guided and focused the content of this G4 Core report. These are the six ways that Strauss Group says sustainability.

Healthy lifestyles:  Strauss Group promotes and supports healthy living through a wide range of products and innovative new foods such as fresh vegetables and salads, super foods such as hummus and kale, functional foods that offer added health value such as probiotic yogurts or foods with added vitamins and minerals. Also, Strauss continues to improve the nutritional profile of its foods by reducing sugar, salt and fats across a wide range of the portfolio. 

But making great healthy products is not enough. Consumers have to get used to the different taste of low sugar content, for example, or venture into new territory by using vegetables, such as kale, that they have not tried before, so much of Strauss's efforts go towards consumer education and awareness. Similarly, consumers can be encouraged to consider lifestyle in a more holistic way - it's not only about food. Strauss Water develops and markets WaterBars for hot or cold purified water at the push of a button. Research shows that families that have a WaterBar drink more water. And in 2014, Strauss developed a mobile app that helps people get moving by connecting them with free outdoor gym spaces, personal trainers and like-minded others who seek more physical exercise. Sabra engaged with thousands of consumers in the U.S. at a specially created Hummus House, to help consumers get to know the health (and taste) benefits of hummus as a part of our daily diet. 

Innovation is often a key to improving the health profile of food products, and for some years now, Strauss has taken the lead as a food-tech enabler, providing a platform for sustainable food technology innovation. In 2014, this was formalized in the form of a collaboration to create a food-tech incubator over 8 years with the Office of the Chief Scientist in Israel at an investment by Strauss of up to more than $10 million to help transform the food industry through breakthrough new approaches to food product development, design, manufacturing and delivery. 

Product transparency and responsible marketing: Strauss meets consumer expectations and regulatory requirements for all food products. Labels are clear and aim to meet all consumer information needs. Responsible marketing standards are upheld, especially in relation to non-marketing of fun and indulgence products to kids. Strauss makes significant efforts to be transparent and open up many different communication channels for consumers - via call centers for consumer queries, or via social media or the company's website. 

Reducing resource consumption and waste: In 2014, Strauss Group reduced energy consumption per ton of product by 8% and GHG emissions per ton of product by 25% across global operations, achievements that follow on the heels of significant resource reductions in prior years. Similarly, Strauss Group reduced water withdrawal per ton of product by 12%. While overall waste did not show a reduction in 2014 (increase of 23% per ton of product), the amount of waste diverted to landfill remained high at 83%. Several initiatives are advanced throughout the Group to reduce resources and environmental impacts, including the conversion of all Israel operations to natural gas, and the expansion of the Sabra production facility in the U.S. to LEED silver green building certification. 

Engaging employees: Strauss continues to invest in leadership development, training and education for employees across the Group's operations, as well as in occupational health and safety. In Israel, for example, a focus in 2014 was safety in the sales force with a significant improvement in results.

Ethical supply chain: Sustainable sourcing continues to be a prime consideration for Strauss Group and Strauss Coffee continues to source a portion of green coffee that is certified sustainable. In addition, advances were made in 2014 in the sustainable sourcing of cocoa and sesame seeds, two top ingredients for Strauss. 

Diversity in everything we do: A diverse workforce for Strauss means both advancing women in management and creating an inclusive workplace for employees from all backgrounds. In 2014, Strauss Group achieved a level of 40% of women in management positions. In addition, Strauss in Israel was recognized by the Forum for Diversity Hiring for advances in hiring populations that are traditionally excluded from the mainstream workforce.

That's six ways that Strauss Group says sustainability and just a few examples of the activities that back up the words. As always, it's a privilege to work with companies that have a genuine desire to make a positive impact on society through the business they do.

Take a look at the report. Give feedback!



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 first / next Sustainability Report? Contact elaine: info@b-yond.biz  

G4 goes MAD with Netafim

Why do we love our work? Because we get to help companies like Netafim tell their story. In this case, we all went a little MAD. That's not MAD like crazy cuckoo but MAD like Mass Adoption of Drip Irrigation. The more you know about drip, the more MAD you become. It's compelling, it's an imperative, it's the present and it's the future. Drip irrigation is about sustainable agriculture, efficient use of resources, water conservation, improved yields and quality of food crops and improved livelihoods for millions of large growers and smallholder farmers around the world. Drip irrigation is synonymous with Netafim Ltd, a group of thousands of dedicated, passionate individuals who come together with a collective mission to make the entire world MAD. (Nothing new here - Netafim has been the leading world pioneer of drip irrigation since 1965, check out Netafim's legacy website).

We love Netafim and we love MAD. And this is the report that we helped create for Netafim, describing the sustainability impacts of this MAD-oriented company.

Netafim 2013 Sustainability Report: At the heart of the food, water and land nexus

Netafim's 2013 Sustainability Report is written in accordance with GRI's G4 guidelines at core level. It presents both Netafim's 2020 sustainability strategy and most material impacts and the stakeholder engagement process that led to defining both. The report also presents many case studies showing how Netafim is driving it's MAD strategy and the impacts that MAD has at individual and community levels. If you want to skip straight to the stories, the report has a hyper-linked highlights page that will whiz you off to India, Croatia, Brazil, Kenya, Cyprus, Australia and the U.S. and more, to meet with growers and farmers that have gained benefits through adopting drip irrigation, becoming just a little bit MAD.

Or you might prefer to navigate straight to Stockholm. Stockholm holds special significance for Netafim as last year, in 2013, Netafim was awarded one of the highest levels of recognition in the industry for its impacts on water sustainability and sustainable water management at Stockholm Water Week, the Stockholm Industry Water Award (SIWA). This year, in 2014, Netafim presented its spanking new strategy and report in Stockholm. 

You can read on the blog of Netafim's Chief Sustainability Officer, Naty Barak, a staunch MAD propounder, as you might expect, about his experiences in Stockholm, and view Netafim's electronic poster presented at Stockholm 2014 Water Week here.  

But let's get back to drip and being MAD about MAD. Many of you might not know much about drip irrigation and why it is so crucial as a contributing solution to many of the worlds feed-energy-water-land scarcity problems. If this applies to you, you can find a brief explanation of how drip drips in Netafim's report. 

Following extensive consultation with stakeholders, both ongoing as part of Netafim's active participation in many of the leading global collaborative platforms that have water security as their prime focus, and as part of a targeted engagement program to support the preparation of the company's strategic approach and materiality definition, Netafim presents this new report under the theme: At the Heart of the Food-Water-Land Nexus. 

We are hearing more and more about The Nexus these days, especially in the context of the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda. It's not just one nexus. Sometimes it's the Food-Energy Nexus, sometimes, the Water-Energy Nexus. Netafim's MAD solutions have the biggest impacts in advancing food, water and land security and these are the three nexus elements that are predominantly relevant for Netafim. The nexus view considers not only each challenge as an individual challenge, but considers all of them as part of one Big Thing. The points at which these challenges interact are the points which offer the greatest global and local opportunities for leveraging smart solutions that deliver the greatest benefits for us and the planet. That's what drip irrigation does and that's why Netafim is totally all about MAD. 

In the run-up to the 2013 Sustainability Report, we helped facilitate stakeholder engagement at two levels: a large round-table discussion with a diverse group of stakeholders based in Israel where Netafim is headquartered, and a series of discussions with global experts in the sustainable agriculture and sustainable business fields. Experts such as Carlo Galli, Technical and Strategy Advisor, Water Resources at Nestlé, Gavin Power, Deputy Director, United Nations Global Compact, Alejandro Litovsky, Founder & CEO, Earth Security Initiative and Pasquale Steduto, Deputy Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa, FAO  provided their expert input and guidance about MAD and other aspects of Netafim's contribution, and you can read some of their comments in the report.

The result of these consultations and management deliberations was a strategic framework for 2020 and a set of most material impacts around which the 2013 Sustainability Report was structured. These topics and themes will guide and support Netafim's ongoing contribution to global sustainability in the coming years.  

One of the things that we love most about our work at Beyond Business is seeing the personal change and transformation that comes through sustainability culture and practices. Most Sustainability Reports describe what a "company" is doing and how managers and employees take action in the course of their roles. This is great, of course, but there is something special about seeing how the concept of sustainability extends beyond the workplace and into the consciousness of people and other facets of their lives. That's why my favorite part of this report is a piece from Netafim's Marketing Manager, Rachel Shaul. Rachel selected a project related to the impact of drip irrigation as part of academic studies at university, and she shares her insights after having interviewed women farmers in the Indian State of Gujarat. Rachel's perspectives are not just about advancing Netafim's irrigation business, they are about the personal change she experienced in engaging with women farmers, and the way their lives have improved. In the report, Rachel shares some of the comments that she recorded in her interviews, reminding us that sustainability is more than a project or a product or a business, it's about people and life in general. 

I recommend (of course !) that you take a look at the Netafim report and (of course!) give feedback. Maybe you also might become a little MAD.


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 www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Strauss Group: a special 7th report

I am always delighted to showcase reports we have worked on for our clients, and this month, Strauss Group published its seventh annual Sustainability Report.

Strauss Group is an international corporation with a portfolio of five companies in the food and beverage sector, headquartered in Israel, active in 24 countries and generating $2.35 billion in consolidated sales in 2013. The Group directly employs over 13,500 people.  

7 is a very special number in many ways. It's the lowest natural number that cannot be represented as the sum of the squares of three integers. 7 is the aliquot sum of one number, the cubic number 8 and is the base of the 7-aliquot tree. 7 is the only dimension, besides the familiar 3, in which a vector cross product can be defined. 7 is the lowest dimension of a known exotic sphere. Of course, if you understood all of that, you are way more intelligent than I am. Or probably than anyone I know. I copy-pasted these 7-facts from Wikipedia. Impressive, right? In the Jewish religion, 7 is special in different ways. More copy-paste - here we come: 7 is one of the greatest power numbers in Judaism, representing Creation, good fortune, and blessing. The Bible is replete with things grouped in 7. Besides the Sabbath, the 7th day, there are 7 laws of Noah and 7 Patriarchs and Matriarchs. Several Jewish holidays are 7 days long, and priestly ordination takes 7 days. The Land of Israel was allowed to lie fallow one year in 7. The menorah in the Temple has 7 branches. There's more from the Rabbi ... check it out here. In numerology, the number 7 is the seeker, the thinker, the searcher of Truth. The 7 doesn't take anything at face value - it is always trying to understand the underlying, hidden truths. The 7 knows that nothing is exactly as it seems and that reality is often hidden behind illusions. More for numerologists here. In gambling, number 7 is really lucky. According to the Psychic Library website, on July 7, 2007, the casinos were full up as hopefuls tried to beat the lucky date 07/07/07 (maybe they also went at 07:07 in the morning!) Someone even wrote a book about the magical, amazing and popular number 7. 

So, having established that 7 is special, we might then expect something special from Strauss Group's 7th Sustainability Report. Here are 7 special things about Strauss Group's 7th Sustainability Report.

First, it's prepared in accordance with GRI G4 (core), a first for Strauss. So far, worldwide, just a few hundred companies have ventured into G4 territory. Actually, the stretch was not overly significant for Strauss, as a deep materiality review had been conducted in 2012 and presented in Strauss's 2012 report. In 2013, in preparation for this report, further consultation with stakeholders was conducted and resulted in a revised focus on six core material issues. The main narrative of the report is aligned with these six material themes. 

Second, each materiality-based chapter presents the core issues, aligned strategic goals, GRI G4 material Aspects and reported Performance Indicators. As you will know if you have read my G4-Game-changer series, this is a critical element of a G4 report. There must be an audit trail from strategy to materiality to performance. The Strauss Group report ensures this is as clear as you can get. 

Third, this report presents Strauss Groups's 2020 Sustainability Strategy. Strauss Group has been assimilating sustainability practices into its operations for many years. This is the first time the Group has worked across company-boundaries and created a global corporate multi-year strategy with measurable targets. The strategy has two elements: impact and performance. Each has three dimensions.

In the Impact element, the three dimensions relate to the direct connection of stakeholders to the company. Colleagues (employees) are the first degree of impact. They are the first to experience the way the company behaves toward them, and they are also the ambassadors of the company and define the way the company impacts other stakeholders. Consumers are a much larger group, of course, and they are directly impacted by the product quality, choice, availability, access and messaging of Strauss Group. The way Strauss impacts consumers has a direct result on the quality of their lives and the way they connect to the company's products. Finally, the Citizenship dimension represents Strauss Group's impacts on society, the environment and all relevant stakeholders. By improving impacts in a spirit of citizenship, ethical behavior, efficient resource management and transparency, Strauss Group continues to make a positive impact as a good corporate citizen. 

In each dimension, the 2020 Sustainability Strategy defines 3 levels of performance - meet, exceed and lead. Meet refers to meeting the basic performance expectations of society and all stakeholders in relation to commonly accepted standards of responsible behavior including governance, compliance and ethics. Exceed represents continuous improvement, exceeding prior performance in certain strategically defined performance areas. Lead refers to a smaller number of performance areas where Strauss aspires to make significant progress and achieve levels of impact that can be considered leading performance at a global level. In this way, the Sustainability Strategy defines the scope and scale and degree of impact improvement that Strauss Group plans to achieve in the next few years. 

Fourth, Aron Cramer, CEO of BSR and one of the leading thinkers and opinion-leaders in sustainability today, reviewed Strauss's material issues and strategic direction and provided guidance. "Strauss should be focused on real issues that are driven by core products. These could include enhancing consumer choice, helping consumers understand the health implications of consumption habits, through product labeling and other means, and sustainable sourcing." His full commentary can be found in the report.  

Fifth, the people. Strauss people appear on many pages of this report and they are the ones that make it all happen. Working with Strauss Group, we are privileged to meet many employees in the course of our varied interactions with Strauss around the world, and we can testify to the Strauss spirit and values that motivate and inspire employees to do great things. Employee engagement at Strauss reaches 92% in parts of the Group, based on employee surveys, and that's what makes this 7th report (and all previous ones) special. 

Sixth, the infographic. It's always good to get the report highlights all in one place. If you are a numbers person, this is the page for you.

7th, is the fact that it's the 7th. Delivering a sustainability report year after year is no easy task. Strauss Group is the only Israel-based company to date that has published  7 reports, year after year, since 2008, demonstrating not only a commitment to transparency and continuous improvement, but also a commitment to local leadership and best practice. 

For us at Beyond Business, supporting clients such as Strauss, as we do around the world, is a privilege and we are delighted to have been able to help create this 7th report. 

Oh and by the way, I should also mention that the number 7 is very relevant to the world of ice cream too. I happened to come across, in my search for all things 7, this announcement by Perry's Ice Cream of 7 new flavors for 2014.  They all sound delicious. As 2014 is nearly over, I had better start tasting.....

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 www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Three Big Ambitions at Tesco

I love retail. It's fascinating - so varied, so full of so many different ways of impacting and influencing our lives. So many different priorities and so many opportunities to drive change. The retail sector is highly visible and constantly in the public eye. Not surprisingly, as most of us interact daily with the retail sector for the products we consume, ranging from food, to personal care, clothes, home appliances, furniture and almost everything else. The choices that retailers make affect millions of lives each day.

The retail sector is no stranger to scrutiny and it's probably true that corporate responsibility and sustainability leaders at the large retailers have a job that is anything but boring. Such is the case with Josh Hardie, Group Corporate Responsibility Director at Tesco. Today is one of those totally non-boring days:

First, Tesco announced it is to remove sweets and chocolate from checkouts across the full range of its stores by the end of the year. Tesco found nearly two thirds (65%) of customers said removing confectionery from checkouts would help them make healthier choices. Just over two thirds of parents (67%) told Tesco that confectionery-free checkouts would help them make healthier choices for their children.

Second, Tesco released its annual corporate responsibility communication, the 2014 Tesco and Society Report. More about that later. First, I was pleased to have the opportunity on this non-boring day to chat to Josh and hear his insights about what made today not boring. Josh has been in his role for around 18 months, having managed Tesco UK Community activities for three years prior to that.

Me: Well done on getting rid of sweets at the checkouts.....
Josh: Yes, we believe we are the first in the industry to do this. It's an absolute fit with our approach to helping people manage their health, and their family's health, by not creating temptations that don't support a healthy lifestyle.

Me: And this on the day you publish your Tesco and Society Report...
Josh: We are working all the time to advance our objectives and make a positive impact. The news is not the publication of the report. It's about how we are fulfilling our role in society. This is a fundamental change. In the past, it was all about the report. Anything you wanted to know about CR at Tesco, you would have to go to the report. Now we are trying to make this much more of a continuous communication, updating our website, much more real-time. While the report is important, it should not be the only way we communicate.

Me: CSR at Tesco has been changing  ....
Josh: Essentially, around 18 months ago, we realized that the way we were approaching CSR wasn't really doing the job, and was rather fragmented. Apart from carbon management, where we had done some great work and achieved impressive results, our overall CSR activity was not having the measurable social and commercial impact that we aspired too. Therefore, we took a long, hard look and what was going on and tried to reframe how to move forward.

Me: And Tesco and Society was born....
Josh: Yes, we learnt from what we did in the carbon area. It had been entirely embedded in the business, and all parts of the business had a role to play. It was managed integrally, rather than just being a project lead by community managers. We decided to take a proper look and adopt a more issues based approach, focusing on the issues Tesco people care about. We had hundreds of conversations internally and externally, and came up with our three big ambitions around reducing food waste, improving health and creating opportunities. These issues truly resonate with Tesco employees and they also meet pressing social needs.

Me: But that's not all ....
Josh: Of course not. But the rest is completely non-negotiable. Trading responsibly, reducing our impact on the environment, being a great employer and supporting communities - these aspects of doing business are now so fundamental that they are just part of the way we work. We need to maintain and improve our performance in all these areas. However, the three big ambitions are the areas where we can take a leadership position, given the size, scale and impact of a business such as Tesco. This can lead to truly meaningful change.

Me: And a culture change......
Josh: Yes, this is the hardest part. You can't change culture in a day. It takes time in an organization like Tesco. Refocusing the way we think about these issues, and our role in advancing solutions, and truly embedding them so they become part of the work that people do all the time and not just a project here and there is a really major transformation for our business.

Me: Aligning with global directions in sustainability...
Josh: We have learnt from what other companies are doing in sustainability, especially the companies that have broken the mold such as Nike. Our approach aligns with the way materiality is driving big change, based on a more holistic view of our role in society. We have flipped the way we are thinking, and this is the start of our new journey.

Me: But I didn't notice any targets...
Josh: Work in progress. Changing the way we think and identifying the big issues we will address has been the focus of our energies so far. Also, setting targets in some of these areas is a real challenge. How do you measure the impact we have on customers' health? Do you look at the healthy content of shopping baskets, or calorie content, or something else? We are reviewing the way we can measure our impact across all our CR performance areas, especially our three big ambitions, and plan to have firmer targets developed by the time our next report is published. We have a new advisory panel that is helping us in this area as well.

Me: I also didn't notice G4 showing up...
Josh: We take guidance from the Global Reporting Initiative framework, but we have chosen not to apply the framework in full. We feel that it's a very useful guide and has challenged us to improve our materiality and disclosure, but prefer the flexibility to do this in a way that is specifically relevant to our strategy.

Me:  What else isn't in there?
Josh: All the answers. We have tried to reflect our approach and performance in a modest way, focusing on the issues, expressing the start of a journey and the challenges ahead in a more realistic way than just saying how wonderful we are. One of the most difficult things is going out to the public with a declaration that we plan to do something in the area of food waste, health or anything else, when we don't have all the answers. Whatever we communicate triggers a debate. With this report, we have had to have the confidence that we mean what we say and that we will work toward delivering our promises, even though we can't provide all the detail today.

Me: And the next report
Josh One thing we might do better in the next report is reflect the different pace of progress in our three ambitions. In this report, we have given all three fairly equal weighting when in practice, we are far more advanced in the area of food waste, we are starting to motor just now in the area of improving health, and in the area of creating opportunities, we have some way to go. In the next report, we should try to reflect this in a way that gives each issue a more appropriate weighting.

Me: Not going to be a boring year, then...
Josh: Anything but.

And now.. to the Tesco and Society 2014 Report 

As Josh Hardie mentioned above, this report is designed around the Tesco and Society approach that was developed last year and introduced in the 2013 report. Despite this not being a G4 report (you all know how I love G4!), the report has a priority-issues-based structure that enables us to clearly navigate to what Tesco is doing in the areas that matter.

The three big ambitions take center stage, and are well explained. At this point, as it is still early days in the "scale for good" journey for Tesco, it's as much about intention as it is about performance, and time will show how Tesco progresses in future reports. This report is very appealing to a wide readership - clear narrative and infographics galore - it might even appeal to Tesco customers. Maybe Tesco should place copies of this report at the checkouts instead of sweets :) Haha. Just joking. I think.

For the more professional reader, the report is rather light on 2013 performance data in areas I would expect a large company sustainability report to cover, such as, for example, employee diversity (other than gender), health and safety, and water performance relative to prior years. Also, while the focus on the three big ambitions is valuable, other issues that we might expect to be discussed in a corporate responsibility report of a major grocery retailer didn't hit the radar - socio-economic impact of store location and placement, construction and green building, sustainable agriculture, supplier diversity, sell-by dates, product labeling and all the other businesses that Tesco is involved in from mobile phones to banking services to petrol filling stations and more. However, the Tesco website contains a wealth of additional information including a catchy business model animation and deeper dive reports into specific issues.  

In the meantime, Tesco is doing more than reporting. It's driving a culture change throughout its business, and that's infinitely more challenging. This, of course, is what will make a difference to the lives of the half a million employees of the company, and the many more millions that go to Tesco to shop in several countries. Reporting about it reinforces and leverages that culture change. I am cautiously optimistically looking forward to the next report already. 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, award-winning 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 at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)