A Compass for CSR

In 2017, there were 173 countries in the world that had a population of 500,000 people or more (CIA Factbook). Country number 174 is Brunei, with a population of 443,593. That means that, with a workforce of more than 550,000 colleagues, Compass Group would displace Brunei as the 174th largest country in the world by population, ahead of Iceland, Malta, Barbados and many more. 

Compass Group's people are dispersed across 50 countries and are engaged in the meaningful occupation of serving over 5.5 billion meals per year in over 55,000 client locations. If you assume an average employee will take one meal per day around 250 days per year, then Compass is providing sustenance and nutrition for more than 20 million people every day. Now, that's some responsibility. It's also somewhat of a challenge, because it's not just about keeping bellies full, it's about catering to different local tastes and food norms, managing the supply of locally sourced ingredients, planning and controlling a complex supply chain, ensuring food safety at every step of the chain and most significantly in my view, helping people to make relevant, healthy and nutritious food choices so that they can feel good, be well and make a productive contribution at work and in their families and communities. So much of the way our society functions is affected by what and how much people consume, that feeding 20 million people a day is no insignificant undertaking.   

Despite this complexity, Compass Group's approach to CSR - positive performance - is characterized by a certain simplicity.  For example, four key strategic KPIs are presented right at the start of Compass Group's 2016 CR Report.

Food safety, workplace safety, climate change impact and wellbeing and nutrition make sense as key areas of responsible and sustainable business practice for Compass. These are four among a set of seven material impacts (that also include compliance, supply chain integrity and employee retention) that Compass manages and tracks consistently across the global business. Together this framework makes their focus crystal clear, intuitively relevant and simply manageable.  

The CR Report is also simply consistent in its presentation. For each of the material focus areas, Compass describes its management approach, focus areas and key metrics. In each section there is also a case study of relevant practice, responding to a global challenge, the reason the topic is important to Compass and what Compass is doing about it. Each section is aligned to the relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals.  

A performance summary delivers results against 22 targets in each of these areas and describes progress made. All in all, an extremely neat, focused, compact and deceptively simple 31-page global report that does the job. 

If you live in the U.S. (where more than half of Compass’s workforce lives), or in the UK and Ireland (with 60,000 employees), you can look at country-specific reports that give local stakeholders a local menu and flavor (OK, pun intended).  

The architect of CR strategy, positive performance and disclosure is the impressive Nicki Crayfourd, Group Health, Safety and Environment Director of Compass Group PLC.   

Nicki will be joining me at the Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference in February in London (hint: did you book your place yet?  Contact me for a discount).  Nicki will join a fascinating morning panel discussing the connection between strategy and reporting frameworks. How do global sustainability priorities and reporting frameworks (SDG and GRI, to name two that you all know) define how you build your sustainability strategy and how you report? What comes first, the framework or the strategy? How do you connect all the dots? Seems to me that Nicki must have some pretty good points to make on this topic, given the way Compass reports. 

I decided not to wait until the conference to connect with Nicki. Here's a chance to get to know her ahead of the session. 

How has your career in sustainability developed?
Nicki: "My background is a little checkered, but hospitality has always been a common theme throughout my career. It is an amazing part of the business world to work in. I started in marketing originally, then moved to sales of in-store catering contracts to retailers. After a while, I joined a large food logistics company, where I was exposed to food safety, which I expanded to include nutrition and aspects of the healthy attributes of food. Later, I was asked to join our largest retail account, and it was a bit like being thrown in at the deep end with sales, supply chain, quality, marketing and managing the entire team. In this role, I set up a new focus for safety and sustainability. My company then actually merged with Compass and I was asked to take over the same role for the whole of the UK. Since then, after a spell of working in Europe, my role has continued to expand and for the past 5 years, I have had a global role covering workplace health and safety, environment for the Group, including leading the sustainability strategy development, reporting and supply chain integrity standards. It has been a great journey. I see it as proof that you can develop an idea based on passion, and together with a good business case, you can make things happen."

What has been the key to your success in embedding sustainability at a corporate level?
Nicki: "I think the fact that I had commercial experience and good knowledge of the business as a whole has been a big help. I believe that sustainability can be much more embedded in what the company is focused on anyway - not just a one-off exercise or additional project. I have tried to think about what else is already available in terms of insights through other channels. The idea is not to duplicate. There is not enough time to do things three or four times. Sustainability needs to draw from other activities in the business that are happening anyway, such as risk assessments, internal audit, legal activities, marketing and consumer programmes etc. We need to bring those into play, rather than always trying to create new things with the same people and groups."

With such a large number of employees in the Group, how to you engage everyone across the business?
Nicki: "We have policy and flexible frameworks that help communicate our expectations for the Group to the country teams. Distilling into a format that engages all the frontline employees is the remit of the country teams. We have a global leadership conference every three years, and this is critical in terms of key messaging, setting objectives and gaining alignment. It’s a good platform - countries take the key themes and then translate them into market plans based on local needs. I am quite dictatorial on requirements for data and this is a massive part of our journey. We require proof points and strong evidence of what we are doing based on consistent definitions and understanding across the business. We have invested in a portal with a third party to collect data from countries."

What's the need for local reporting in the UK and the U.S.?   
Nicki: "There are different topics that interest our customers, regulators and employees in different countries. In addition to our two biggest markets, I would like to expand our reporting to include more countries. I think it is important to have a connection to the local market through reporting, though it is true that sometimes I have to nag for stories. Our global report must serve a range of high level stakeholders and it does that well enough. We have also invested in our corporate website with better functionality and we plan to include updates during the year, mainly for ESG analysts, investors, clients and institutional shareholders and NGOs."

Smarter reporting. What does that mean? 
Nicki: "Smarter reporting means more transparency. Transparency is having the confidence to say what we have achieved but also that there are challenges we are facing and must still work on. There is naturally a certain tension when talking about challenges. The food sector in general is often targeted by the media in the UK and U.S., and sometimes the facts get confused by the media. This makes our sector less willing to be open beyond what's required. However, I feel we are making slow but certain progress."

*****

It seems to me that there is always more to do, and there are always challenges to face. There is no perfect business. Sustainability, and the reporting bit, is a journey. However, it also seems to me that Nicki's process-oriented, focused and simple approach to embedding sustainability is a good recipe for more positive performance.


Join us at the edie Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference on February 27 and share your thoughts with Nicki, a large group of inspiring professionals and, err, me.




elaine cohen, CSR Consultant, Sustainability Reporter, former HR Professional, Trust Across America 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, Ice Cream Addict, Author of three totally groundbreaking books on sustainability (see About Me page). 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 

Elaine will be chairing  the edie Conference on Smarter Sustainability Reporting  in London on 27th February 2018 

Nine things of note in Strauss Group's ninth report

The Sustainability Reporting journey is always so fascinating. The companies that I love to work with treat Sustainability Reporting as an opportunity for deep reflection, discussion, debate, consideration, revision, re-framing and renewal. While these processes often happen throughout the year, the choice to publish a Sustainability Report by a certain date ensures that these process streams are priority-funneled into one orderly alignment of content that becomes the company's account of its impacts and its unique sustainability story.

Strauss Group has been doing this now for the past nine years, and while you might think that it's easy to simply pick up with each new report where the last one left off, this is never the case. Our world is so dynamic, our days are so crammed with everything and great companies do so much in one year, that each new Sustainability Report is a new challenge and a new opportunity. Hence the reflection, debate and renewal. And this this case, Strauss Group's ninth Sustainability Report is a unique story, a creative presentation and a compelling read.  

1. Listening, Acting, Improving
This year, the focus for Strauss was Listening, Acting, Improving. It was driven by deep introspection throughout the year, and consultation with stakeholders, especially consumers, who provided important and insightful feedback to Strauss Group about things that go right to the core of the business and the way the business is conducted. Osnat Golan, VP for Communications, Digital and Sustainability at Strauss Group made the point: "During the past two years, we have learned that the highest priorities for our consumers are fair pricing and helping to curb the rising cost of living, as well as advancing healthy nutrition through our products." This year, Strauss Group's report reflects the actions the Group has taken in direct response to stakeholder concerns and expectations.

2. Fair product pricing
There are few, if any, food companies that address pricing policy in their Sustainability Reports. What is the responsibility of a food company to price food products so that a broader spectrum of the population can afford to buy them? How many companies acknowledge this as a responsibility? I suspect that Strauss Group is pioneering in its approach to respond to the rising costs of living and the affordability of basic foodstuffs by reducing consumer list prices across a range of products in the order of between 2.5% and 22.8% in its home market in Israel in 2015. In a year when consumers were continuing to assertively state that food pricing has put certain products beyond their reach, Strauss became the first company (and the only one to date) in the local market to listen, act and improve. These price reductions are significant. After all, corporate responsibility and sustainability is not just about saving the planet. It's also about contributing to the quality of life on the planet. Fair pricing is a highly sensitive, subjective and complex issue - it takes a bold company to accept "fair pricing" as an objective and take measures to implement a fair price policy for consumers.

3. Supporting employees
The second initiative that ran alongside support for consumers in 2015 was support for employees. Employees are consumers too, and if the cost of living rises, they feel the pinch just as other consumers do. Many companies today accept the concept of "living wage" and implement policies to compensate employees in line with a target wage level. At Strauss in Israel, following the direct input of hundreds of employees in feedback meetings over the past two years, Strauss understood the need to protect lower income employees and took this seriously as an element of the company's approach to corporate responsibility and its social license to operate. In the past two years, Strauss boosted benefits for employees at the lower end of the income scale and in 2015, set the way for several very significant additions, including a fixed proprietary minimum wage around 7% higher that the legally mandated level, child care support worth thousands of dollars per year for eligible employees and the opportunity to contribute to an employer-matched tax-free savings fund that helps employees protect their future with an accessible savings program. In addition, employees receive a host of other benefits to help them cope with the economic challenges of simply making it through the month in the black.

4. The Kitchen
The progress made at The Kitchen is worthy of note in Strauss Group's ninth report. The Kitchen is a pioneering initiative by Strauss with the support of the Chief Scientist of Israel, designed to advance food-tech in Israel to deliver new technologies that improve the sustainability of food production or deliver new benefits for consumers. This is a contribution to the advancement of the food industry - the technologies that are developed will not necessarily used by Strauss Group in their operations. With an investment of $25 million over 8 years (40% funded by Strauss, the remainder by the Israeli government), in its first year of activity, the Kitchen has already propelled three amazingly innovative food-tech startups into a new sphere of development and commercial activity. Entrepreneurs would have a hard time accelerating their development without such support. Enabling them to get on the map is a significantly positive sustainability impact.

 

5. The performance

In one year, since the last report, Strauss Group has made significant progress on several fronts, and the performance highlights are delivered up front for readers who want an overview and not an extensive read. One summary infographic for each main section of the report does a good job in pointing readers in the direction of what's most significant.

6. The design elements

Of course, Sustainability Reports are about content, not design. But design that brings reports to life makes it fun for us to read the content. It demonstrates an intent to produce a document that will encourage readership, rather than a stuffy old PDF crammed with text that turns you off before you get to page 2. In 2015, the folks at Strauss Group's long-standing report designer, Studio Merhav, have excelled themselves in creative design that supports the narrative and makes this report a delight to read. Infographics blended with photos and freehand design cause you to stop and look at the imagery as you read the report, giving you time to consider the meaning and the messages that they reflect. A world away from the Stock era and hand-cupped globes of the early days of reporting. Here are a few examples. Aren't they fabulous? 

 

7. Environmental data presentation

Another design feature in this ninth report is the presentation of environmental data. Instead of the usual graphs and charts, environmental data is presented in a way which makes it fun to actually look at the numbers. This presentation supplements the detailed performance tables over several years that are included in the report for those who want the specific numbers. But for most of us who want to see the big picture quickly, this presentation does the job. 

8. The credits

Not many companies include credits to those who work on the report. Strauss Group has always done that. Credits to providers who have worked on the report is an expression of the respect Strauss has for other businesses, small businesses, as it happens, and demonstrates another aspect of both transparency and social responsibility. (At this point, it's appropriate to disclose that I worked on this report, together with my team at Beyond Business - the fourth report we have supported for Strauss Group alongside additional consulting work on different aspects of strategy development. It is always a pleasure and an honor to work with Strauss.)

9. Daniela

The achievements of Sustainability Reporting Managers often go unsung in our reporting world. A few present at conferences, a few write blogs, but most of the hard work in reporting is driven by passionate, skilled and impressively dedicated individuals who mobilize entire organizations in order to get a result their companies can be proud of - most of whom we never get to know. The achievements of Reporting Managers are no small thing, and real credit is due to them. So it is with Daniela Prusky-Sion, Strauss Group's Sustainability and Internal Comms Director, who has led this work for several years. Daniela is a dynamo, never tiring in her efforts to do things better, do things right and do more things to advance Strauss Group's strategic approach to sustainability and improved contribution. Reports under her watch get better and better.

As usual, take a look! 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 

Summing up Sustainability!

Novus International released the company's sixth annual online Sustainability Report just recently, this time in accordance with GRI G4 at core level.

Novus International, Inc. is a privately-owned feed ingredients company, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., serving customers in nearly 100 countries around the world. A global leader in developing animal health and nutrition solutions, Novus products include feed supplements, additives and many specialty ingredients that help animals digest food better and improve their well-being. All of the products that Novus develops and markets to livestock farmers, small and large, around the world have sustainable benefits - improving feed efficiency, enhancing yield and quality, reducing costs and taking high levels of waste out of the supply chain. Both in established markets that face new economic and regulatory challenges on a daily basis, and for smallholder farmers in emerging markets where Novus has developed a strong presence, this can mean the difference between a successful, sustainable livelihood and hardly any livelihood at all. A more efficient farming operation can be the key not only to surviving but to thriving for many Novus customers.

Inherently sustainable products and services
Novus delivers products and services that are inherently sustainable and improve the efficiency of the entire food chain. In the 2013 report, Novus sums up several of the positive impacts achieved through the company's core business activity. One of my favorite examples is a story about the outcomes of the C.O.W.S. program.

Comfort. Oxidative balance. Well-being. Sustainability.

Over the past three years, Novus invested in a groundbreaking study, the largest of its kind in the world, to assess animal husbandry practices in the dairy industry, and the subsequent implications for both animal welfare and productivity. Novus maintains a team of qualified technicians, who work closely with farm owners, nutritionists, herd managers and veterinarians to understand herd practices and the impacts on cow comfort and productivity. Between 2010 and 2013, Novus assessed 75,000 cows and 400 farms, some multiple times. The results provide incredible insight into performance by size of farm, region, and general management practice, and help understand the bottlenecks that affect cow comfort and ultimately, dairy farm profitability. Novus repeated assessments at over 20 farms, thereby understanding the measure of improvement that was achieved following the implementation of changes made by farm owners after they were presented with herd information. The detailed assessment data helped them understand where productivity bottlenecks were occurring in their farm management practices.

Just one outcome story (and there are many) from this massive undertaking is about a family-owned dairy in New York that, in just one year, maintained milk production while reducing culling rate, halving the prevalence of lameness and knee injuries (which reduce milk production), and delivering improved milk quality for higher-profit sales. In several cases, data from the C.O.W.S. study was instrumental in helping farmers convince the banks that there is a good business case for making a loan to enable farmers to invest in efficiency improvements. In some cases, this made the difference between farmers continuing to produce or closing up shop. This is about sustainable value delivered through the core business, and summing up the research and outcomes of 75,000 cow assessments is one of the truly interesting parts of this report.

The report also contains many other examples of how Novus, through its core products and services, has enabled enhanced customer productivity and profitability. In doing so, Novus makes a strong contribution to overall food availability and cost-efficient food supply chains around the world.

Transitioning to G4 and material focus
The report is somewhat of a transitional report, making the change from GRI G3 reporting at B level for the past few years now, to a more ambitious report using the G4 framework, including consideration and declaration of material issues and the start of a more strategic approach to overall sustainability performance. 

One of the things I have always admired about Novus and the 50 or 60 people I have got to know during the time I have been working with the company is the deep sense of vision and mission. 

People talk this. They work the vision. It's not something I just see in a document somewhere. The many sales people out in the different markets and the extensive research teams in the U.S. and Spain describe their roles and ongoing activities in terms of the degree to which they are contributing to global food security. This plays out in the many conversations I have each year with many individuals around the Novus world. 

In preparation for this report, Novus assessed the issues that matter most, starting with a Materiality Map of more than one hundred potentially relevant areas of material impact. After discussion with stakeholders and internal reviews, Novus created a set of five core material sustainability impacts that reflect the way Novus both makes a contribution and manages its own performance.

The alignment of material impacts and G4 material Aspects, as well as Performance Indicators reported, can be found in the GRI G4 Content Index.

Materiality the heart of the compass

At the heart of the sustainability priorities compass are Novus customers and the sustainable contribution that Novus makes to ensuring they do well, as shown above in the C.O.W.S. story. This is by far the most important and most significant opportunity for Novus, and, by focusing on how customers can do better, Novus does better. And inherently, the world food chain, society in general and the environment all benefit. Reductions in nitrogen emissions from animal livestock, for example, is an outcome of using Novus products. One of the challenges, of course, is knowing how to measure these outcomes, and in preparation for the Summing Up Sustainability Report, many different measures were reviewed and assessed, and this will continue to be refined as Novus moves forward. 

Sustainable animal agriculture is also an important impact for Novus. The agriculture sector, despite its critical importance for our sustainable future, faces many challenges, not least the fact that agri-professions are apparently not as sexy as they used to be. With 70% of the global population migrating to city-living by 2050, as some projections point out, the need for agriculture to be and stay state-of-the-art is even more critical than ever. With 30% - 40% of food production being wasted before it even gets to the consumer, the need to employ skilled people, science-based solutions and enabling technology is no less critical. Novus identifies with these industry challenges and accepts its role in helping attract new talent to agriculture and supporting development scholarships for many agri-students around the world. 

Employee well-being

Another thing that has always impressed me about Novus is the attention paid to employee well-being through the Novus Live Well Program. Employees who subscribe to Live Well gain many personal incentives and benefits, simple by doing things that help keep them and their families fit and healthy. Employees participate in fun, healthy lifestyle events, often as part of teams, and this also contributes to an open and interactive networked culture within Novus. In return for investment in a workplace that supports healthy lifestyles, in addition to organizational and employee productivity benefits, Novus has experienced a reduction in healthcare costs. Win-win all around.  

As always, I recommend you take a look at the Novus International report and.... yes.... give feedback!

Disclosure: Novus International is a valued client and I worked on this report, the fourth I have supported for Novus during a time of significant business change and development for the company. Each year has been fascinating and none more fascinating than the last. 

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.