The CSR Reporting Blog Rap

By now you will all have seen the Samsung report rap, as well as all the criticisms (facepalm). I guess we should give Samsung top marks for creativity and originality (any other report raps out there?) but pretty close to zero when it comes to intelligence and genius marketing. It defies understanding how the Samsung lyrics (Samsung, we 280,000 humans 40 percent 112,000 women You don’t have to worry after giving birth Sit back, relax, no need to work) got approved at any level of the organization. 

However, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say. Maybe rapping reports is a good thing. With a little help from Wiki How to write a rap song, I thought it might be a good idea to offer some ideas to other companies that might want to move to the next stage in advanced and innovative reporting communications techniques. 

So here you have it: The CSR Blog Report Rap: CSR is cool

When I think of a business it makes me depressed
I don't know why they do things it's all just messed
Up when they go for the money instead of respect and
They ruin the planet everything's just wrecked we can't
Live like this we need some air it's the corporate machine rollin over us there
We gotta fight back make more CSR so the people can live and reach for a star
End poverty end war end corporate fraud make it fair make it share don't ever get bored

CHORUS: 
CSR is cool if you don't lose your cool
When you go with the flow the flow makes you go
If you wanna groove CSR is the move
Save the world save the planet we all approve

CSR makes things right it's for positive stuff
When it's CSR you can never do enough
It's long-term thinking that will win the day but we know
That investors will have their say and ask for money sooner not later
But we can't live our lives in the shadow of a dictator
We need to stand tall and show them all how
CSR can work in the here and the now and make our lives better in any weather

CHORUS:
CSR is cool if you don't lose your cool
When you go with the flow the flow makes you go
If you wanna groove CSR is the move
Save the world save the planet we all approve

Employees and staff should ensure that their leaders are
Right for the job and not chicken-breeders and know how to
Plan a CSR path with eco and green and employee motivation
To make a contribution and lift us out of desperation
CSR is the way to a better world ahead with 9 billion citizens needing to be fed
Globalization urbanization the digital divide it's all too much don't go along for the ride
Equality, humanity, end of poverty and hunger when we all pull together we can even get younger

CHORUS:
CSR is cool if you don't lose your cool
When you go with the flow the flow makes you go
If you wanna groove CSR is the move
Save the world save the planet we all approve


Feel free to use this rap in your report communications. No copyright :-)


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. 

Insights from the 2014 Humboldt Berlin CSR Conference

There's nothing like a good conference to add back a little buzz to those old brain-cells. Especially ones that have been somewhat numbed by non-stop sleep-depriving work on G4 reports for our clients. Ha Ha. Joking of course, we LOVE reporting. But we also love great conferences.

This last week I was honored to both speak at and attend the 6th International Conference on Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, organized by the incredible gentleman and scholar, Professor Dr. Joachim Schwalbach. The conference drew a massive crowd, many academics - teachers and students - from a range of impressive institutions, as well as corporate and other delegates. It was a refreshing two days, full of thought-provoking debate. 

I took part in three sessions. As a panelist in the a parallel session on Day One, moderated by Dr. Carol Adams, and as a moderator for a plenary and parallel session on Day Two. Of course, when you are involved, it is difficult to remember everything that went on. It's a bit like trying to recall what the food was like at your own wedding. However, here are a few insights:

Evolution of corporate reporting 

The role of Stock Exchanges in driving disclosure: We were treated to an opening presentation by Sonia Favaretto of the Brazilian BM&F BOVESPA Stock Exchange, who demonstrated that the "report or explain" approach for listed companies had boosted corporate disclosure in Brazil quite substantially. This enlightened Exchange has driven reporting reach for more than a couple of hundred of the larger Brazilian companies, in line with the Stock Exchange's mission "to promote sustainability and private social investment aligned with strategy". I believe this is a lead that many more Stock Exchanges will follow in the future, although at present, a study by Canadian Corporate Knights Capital found that only 128 (less than 3%) of the 4,609 largest companies listed on the world’s stock exchanges disclose data on basic sustainability indicators such as employee turnover, energy, greenhouse gas emissions, injury rate, pay equity, waste and water. In the meantime, BMFBOVESPA publishes a list of who has reported and who has not, and the reasons they gave for not doing so. 

The legal implications of the newly adopted EU reporting directive: Dr. Birgit Speisshofer was the lawyer on the panel, and after the usual jokes about lawyers, she gave us a detailed legal-lens view of the implications of the EU Directive for disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large companies - expected to affect around 6,000 companies in Europe. Without going into all the details, it seems that this legislation is rather flexible, including some leeway for member states' adoption to meet local preferences, and has several fuzzy areas that can exempt certain reporting requirements for companies for whom reporting may not be the height of excitement. So, while the spirit of the law will drive reporting forward, I have no doubt, the pace, quality and consistency of reporting may well remain challenged in Europe. 

Reporting consistency and comparability: One of the key aspects of reporting that held the conversation for a while in this session was the notion of comparability. Do current reporting frameworks facilitate comparability and did they ever? My view on this is quite firm. There is no comparability (between companies) today, there never has been and there probably never will be. Take any small selection of reports and try to compare performance data either across sectors or within a sector and you come up with almost as many different versions of performance disclosure as you have reports. Even trying to compare one company against its own prior performance is often a challenge. Current reporting frameworks would have to be far more prescriptive in order to drive consistency and comparability. And it is precisely such prescriptiveness that companies fight to avoid. Why is comparability so important? Because we all want a sense of whether progress is being made, companies share a competitive spirit and investors look for relative assessments for their portfolio trade-offs. Saying there is no comparability when there are so many ratings and rankings out there that claim to have "the formula" for evaluating relative corporate sustainability performance may be tantamount to heresy. But, I say, there is no comparability. Burn me at the stake. Don't waste your time looking for comparability. Look instead for evidence of robust process, relevant disclosure around material impacts, consistency of targets and reported performance over time and stakeholder interactions that deliver confidence that change is being achieved.

Who is the audience and does it matter? As usual, the question of who reports are for, who the audience is and who "actually" reads them came up once again. Well, you know by now that I say reports are not meant to be read. They are meant to be written. And when they are written, they can be used by a wide range of stakeholders. Recall that stakeholders are often multi-hatted. An employee can be a shareholder can be an environmental activist can be a local community member can be a disabled person can be married to a local policy-maker can be mother or father to an investment analyst, blogger, journalist or other professional. The stakeholder concept is not what it used to be. Neat compartmentalization of stakeholder interests is now not an exact science. The boundaries are getting fuzzier. Information channels are getting re-wired. Targeted messaging for the purpose of dialogue and engagement is not the sole remit of a sustainability report. We would do well to recall that a report is designed to account for impacts. The impacts define the stakeholders and not the other way around. Although I will bet there are plenty who disagree with me.   

For an additional overview and perspective on this panel and others, see a post from Dr. Carol Adams, who moderated the session.

Reputation, CSR & Innovation

The Reputation Economy is alive and well: We opened this session with a presentation from sharp-thinker Leslie-Gaines-Ross, Chief Reputation Strategist at Weber Shandwick, who focused on the Reputation Economy and the role of the CEO, quoting a stat that 50% of reputation equity is created by the CEO. The value of reputation in today's complex info-dynamic world cannot be underestimated and the challenges of managing reputation in a way that is constructive (and not construed as manipulative) require new skills, and that means more than CEOs tweeting and sharing family photos. The CEO reputation is as important as ever, according to Leslie, and in a world where trust in business is not always so positive, the CEO can play a critical role. 

Reputation should work inside the company as well as outside the company: As reputation leaders, CEOs have the opportunity to drive corporate reputation internally as well. That may sound like a non-sequitur - isn't reputation external? - but it's true. Susanne Marell of Trust-Barometer-fame Edelman (Berlin)  says that employees want CEOs to speak up for them, they want CEOs to be their representatives, people of whom they can be proud. No wonder Glassdoor rates CEOs as well as companies. CEOs would do well to remember that their audience is not only those to whom they do not pay salaries. 

CEOs are not recruited with CSR in mind: Brigitte Lammers of Egon Zehnder astounded us all with her statement that, in the hiring process for CEOs, no requirement for the "new" CSR-type skills relating to engagement or stakeholder or reputation management are sought. Instead, CEOs are hired for traditional qualities such as decision-making, P&L orientation, experience, profit maximization etc. So you tell me, if business is going to change the world, how is it that CEOs are not changing? Next time you are in the market for a CEO, think about what kind of company she has to lead. Ha Ha. Subtle. More women CEOs may just be the best of all worlds.  

Thank you to Joachim Schwalbach for this photo

Reputation, CSR & Communications

We opened this panel up with a question to five experts.

Everyone in business today and in society in general faces a mass of information in all forms, via all channels 24/7/365. How do you get people to pay attention to your CSR message?

Simple question. Complex answer. Breaking through the noise is not such a POC. It's more than publishing a Sustainability Report and expecting people to find it. Five panelists offered great insights about how to help make your CSR message stand out from the crowd, increase trust and enhance the reputation of your company. 

Berhnard Schwaeger of Robert Bosch GmbH suggested that, in addition to an annual Sustainability Report, maintaining consistent dialogue and sharing information, including talking about difficult or challenging topics, is the way to do it. The Bosch Sustainability Blog is an example of the way Bosch walks the talk. 

Leslie Gaines-Ross is acutely aware of the multiplicity of messaging and communication channels and says that breaking through the noise means (appropriately) using all available channels - social media, video and more traditional channels - in the optimum way. 

Gabi Faber-Wiener, a respected voice in business ethics and founder of the Centre for Responsible Management in Vienna says, perhaps not surprisingly, if you want to get your CSR message through, don't call it CSR! Who wouldn't agree? 

Mette Morsing of Copenhagen Business School reiterated that "communication is action" and engaging in partnerships with third parties and having them endorse you for your work and involvement is a way to ensure your message gets told. 

Finally, our second expert of the day from Edelman Berlin, Bernd Buschhausen, offered a little relief to corporate CEOs by saying that the CEO should not be the only one talking CSR - employees and external partners can also be fantastic ambassadors of your CSR message. 

Whatever ways you choose to get your CSR message through the sound barrier and bypass the tendency of the general media to report only shock and horror and avoid the good stories, all agreed that CSR communications should be relevant, engaging and inspirational. 

I couldn't help adding a word or two ten about reporting, being a reporting geek as I am known to be. Reporting may not be THE way to ensure that your message breaks through, but when people are looking for your message, it will ensure they find it. When people want to know about you, your Sustainability Report will make sure they get what you give. You can't make Mohammed come to the mountain, but when he gets there, you can make sure he drinks from the right well. Or whatever other mixed metaphor your prefer. Research has shown that reading a Sustainability Report increases the readers' trust in a company. A well-written, material-focused and forward-looking sustainability report is the story your stakeholders, internal and external are looking for. It's as indispensable having a website, a business card, a smartphone and ice-cream. It's part of the corporate package and its not in competition with any other company. It's the way you tell your unique corporate story and it's an essential element of Reputation, CSR and Communications. Now, why wouldn't everyone want a piece of that?

*************

All in all, the Berlin CSR Conference was two days well spent and I have only scratched the surface in this post. Many plenaries, parallel sessions, awards, books, discussions, good food, drinks, music and even dancing made this conference one of the must-attend events of 2014. Fortunately, we only have two years to wait for the next one! See you here in 2016.   

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.   

A new era of collaboration and innovation for GRI

GRI this month welcomes a new Chief Executive, Michael Meehan

GRI's announcement states:

Mr. Meehan’s appointment comes at a crucial juncture for GRI and for sustainability disclosures. In an evolving sustainability reporting landscape, Mr. Meehan will lead GRI in working with new methodologies such as those on natural capital and around integrated reporting, and will drive GRI’s collaboration with global reporting frameworks. He will guide the organization in achieving its mission of making sustainability reporting standard practice worldwide, and promoting the role of sustainability disclosures in addressing global sustainability challenges.

Sounds like Michael is going to have a lot on his plate. And certainly, he has a strong legacy left by Ernst Ligteringen who has done a sterling job leading GRI in the face of many challenges over the past 12 years. After chatting with Michael, I am left with optimism that he will know how to embrace the value that GRI has created while skillfully navigating new themes in the zeitgeist of sustainable development and the needs of sustainability disclosure. It's a complex map, and the sort of practical entrepreneurial spirit, driven by clarity of vision and collaborative orientation that Michael Meehan brings, seems to be the right mix. I wish MM warm congratulations on his appointment and good luck as he takes up residence in GRI's Amsterdam hub. 

As Michael takes up his role, I am sure the word strategy will feature quite a lot in the first few weeks and months. I am sure that everyone will be wanting to know what his priorities are, goals, targets, new ways of doing things, more of this, less of that, new broom and all that. I expect there will be quite a few who have some advice and recommendations, seeing a new chief as a new opportunity to get some things straight and promote an agenda. Allen White was top-speed off the mark in an open letter to MM published in the Guardian (I always wondered about the point of open letters...seems a bit oxymoronish to me) in which he lays down his priorities for the new boss. I expect there will be plenty more open, closed and ajar letters that attempt to influence the new boy on the block as he scans the landscape. However, for me, what's more important than giving Michael Meehan my views about where he should lead GRI, is getting to understand who he is. I am interested in knowing more about what's important to Michael and what motivates him, because that will influence what he does at GRI. (Anyone who doesn't like ice cream, for example, would be a complete non-starter, as far as I am concerned. Happily, this is not the case with Michael Meehan).

I was privileged to have some time to chat with Michael on the phone today...and am pleased to be able to introduce him to the CSR Reporting Blog readers, and share a bit about his thinking as he takes up his new role.   

Michael Meehan At A Glance
Michael or Mike? Michael
Born in? Antigonish, Scottish Gaelic: Am Baile Mór; "The Big Town" but we called it antigonowhere.
Star sign? Scorpio
Top breakfast food? Dutch waffles (called Stroopwafels in Holland)
Last movie you saw? Whatever was playing on the plane last time
Currently reading? Stacks of organizational material about GRI
Most like about Amsterdam? Cycling
Fave social media channel? Google + because I need way more than 140 characters to express myself.
Fave wine? Amarone wine cause it’s got the grit. Not filtered. There are twigs and stuff at the bottom but it tastes great.
Fave place to scuba dive? Scapa Flow.
Fave TV show? Don’t even remember the last time I watched TV
Fave Superhero? Underdog
Fave ice cream flavor? Moose Tracks. Best one going.
Scared of? My kids not knowing what I do for a living.
One thing most people don't know about me is….. In a former life I was actually a scuba diving teacher.

Michael Meehan and what's important

What's most important to you as you take up your new role?

What's most important to me, I think, is the same as what's important to most of us. We are all working to the same goal of a sustainable future.

The reason I am here is to help strengthen GRI's role as a driver and integrator of sustainability disclosure. The reporting landscape has changed, not necessarily unexpectedly, but it has changed. It is shifting rapidly, and that's a good thing. GRI is moving toward a standard-setting approach. This is an evolutionary step that GRI has been considering for some time. The emergence of other frameworks is also evolutionary. The perception out there is that these frameworks compete. But they do not. There is no competing version of materiality – there are different internal contexts that may apply, but this is not competition. 

The thing that differentiates GRI is that it is a strong network that we can leverage to increase collaboration and innovation to create new frameworks. There is a perception is that more frameworks are bad. I don't see it that way. More frameworks are good. We want to see more frameworks that help corporations manage governance and disclosure more effectively in ways that move them forward. GRI has always been that network in the middle that helps things come together.. a sort of backbone of sustainability disclosure, holistically capturing all of the universe of things in CSR reporting that need to be addressed. No one else is doing this. My interest is to strengthen that backbone to improve collaboration and facilitate innovation. We can learn from industries – such as the technology industry – that has done this well and apply those learnings to the sustainability disclosure landscape. GRI is an inclusive framework. We can build on this.

Who are the key stakeholders that you will be looking to engage and work with as you take up your new role?

The world of stakeholders, for GRI, is expansive and we have to move forward on several fronts as we target to strengthen our collaboration and innovation in sustainability disclosure. We will set our sights in working more closely on the labor and human rights side, and supporting new regulatory initiatives relating to reporting, while continuing to build our international leadership. I'll be reviewing the excellent relationships that GRI has maintained so far and looking to accelerate and broaden the momentum in areas that support improved collaboration and innovation.

What has been your interaction with GRI to date?

I have been familiar with GRI for ages. In fact, early on in my career, I invented one of the first carbon management platforms, to help companies calculate and manage their carbon footprint. This was part of the emerging sustainability disclosure world at that time. The first things clients would ask was: how does this fit with reporting frameworks such as GRI?  That was my first taste of sustainability reporting - using a data collection and reporting framework to help companies improve their impacts. 

What do you see as the biggest opportunities for expansion/acceleration of sustainability reporting? 

The number of reporting entities is increasing rapidly. There's no doubt about that. At the same time, there are concerns about the quality of reporting. Part of our role at GRI is to help drive not only widespread acceptance but also help improve the quality of reporting overall. That's one opportunity. Another opportunity is in the area of helping remove the confusion that exists in the area of competitive frameworks. Other frameworks for sustainability disclosure understand the need for collaboration but from the outside, this looks like competition. I have already spoken to the leadership of several other frameworks and I hear a genuine desire to collaborate. We have to build on this desire and make collaboration more apparent and transparent to all those who are watching what we do and are affected by what we do. This challenge has been met time and time again in other industries. It can be done.

What are the specific skills you bring that will be of most use to moving GRI forward in the next phase?

One of the key things is related to my point above. One of the areas I specialize in is helping markets come together. One of the things I love most is being in a place at the time when everything starts to coalesce and helping it happen. I have experience in this area. It's what I find most challenging and most rewarding. There may be lots of different interests but everything has the same goal. That's the skill set that I bring to the table, and that's my focus. The outcome is for GRI to get through it with a stronger backbone. The work we are doing on standards is a part of that. We need to focus more on how people are reporting, how we interconnect with other frameworks and how we define the architecture of the reporting landscape. GRI is the only de facto sustainability metrics framework in the world. We can play a very significant role here.

The second thing that I bring is my experience with developing and using technology. The ability of organizations to capture data and information in reports is now facilitated through technology. At one time, it was impossible. Now, technology enables you to get data very quickly, cut it up in different ways and reuse it in different formats to meet different reporting requirements. A GRI report is an incredibly robust source of data and this fits very well with many aspects of corporate governance. I believe I can help advance the use of technology in reporting that will help companies become more efficient in the way they report and also enhance innovation in the reporting market place.

What can we count on from you as GRI's new chief exec?

You can count on my mantra: collaboration and innovation. I'll be looking to drive better outcomes for GRI and for all of us in the field of sustainability reporting. Communications is a big part of this. We need to make sure everyone knows what's going on. 

***********

Sounds good to me! Collaboration, innovation and Moose Tracks. I confess that I had never even heard of Moose Tracks ice cream flavor. I am going to have to track some mooses down in the very near future. At the same time, I will be sending positive vibes through cyberspace all the way to Amsterdam in support of Michal Meehan and the other capable folks at GRI, hoping to see the fruits of collaboration and innovation in better sustainability reporting in the coming years. 

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

Is innovation a material issue ?

What are sustainability material issues? GRI says "Material Aspects are those that reflect the organization’s significant economic, environmental and social impacts; or that substantively influence the assessments and decisions of stakeholders." 

Author's note: For those who haven't yet got it, Aspects (capital A) is the GRI word for material issues, as distinct from topics, which are non GRI-listed material issues, as distinct from aspects (lower-case a) which are looks, appearances or positions. 

Where does innovation fit into all of this? Can innovation be described as a sustainability material issue? 

According to GRI, in the GRI G4 Implementation Manual, innovation is not listed as a material Aspect. In fact, in 266 pages of Implementation Manual, the word "innovation" appears only once. Isn't that surprising? Most companies would say that innovation is their life-blood, and that it's impossible to deliver sustainable growth without innovation. Many innovations today have far-reaching consequences for society and the environment. Some are totally transformative. Think of digital revolution, hi-tech, bio-tech and everything-tech, low carbon society, advances in medicine and more. Forbes lists the most innovative companies in the world and Fast Company does exactly the same thing (same idea, different companies). Many of the most innovative companies are also the most sustainable, according other ratings and rankings.

There are 10 types of innovation, as I learned from a neat presentation I found on Slideshare. This presentation even provides an example of innovation for sustainability from FedEx, demonstrating the close connection between both:

In the great report produced by Fronesys a while back, innovation ranked 14 out of 140 separate material issues analyzed from the materiality matrices of 31 reporting companies. There is even an Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Melbourne Australia. 

So how come innovation is not a material issue Aspect in the GRI G4 framework? 

I guess that this comes back to one of the core challenges we find in using the G4 framework.

At one level, G4 is refreshingly non-prescriptive, enabling companies to make a free choice of which issues to report, provided the company demonstrates some degree of process in selecting those issues. 

At another level, any attempt to force-fit issues into a limited set of 6 Categories and 46 Aspects (and then select appropriate performance indicators) requires some mental acrobatics in order to adapt the G4 framework to the specific materiality messages of each company. Practically, having worked on several G4 reports so far (watch this space for publications this month :)) and having completed several G4-Ready analyses, I can say that this is one of the most difficult implementation steps of G4. And yet it is a critical step which governs the content of most of the G4 report.  

In G4's view of the world, everything appears to be framed in terms of impact. What is innovation if not a way to make an impact? Innovation, then, is a product, or a service or a new organizational process. It's the product or service or process that makes the impact, not the innovation itself or the innovation process. Therefore, in GRI terms, the material Aspect is about the product or service. Products and services fit neatly into the material Aspects framework. As it stands, innovation does not.  

This means that the G4 framework doesn't quite take into account the fact that innovation itself is a process and often seen as an issue in its own right. Innovation has a significant internal impact on the way people work, on organizational culture and on the sort of people you can hire and whether they stay. The G4 approach doesn't quite take into account that innovation is sometimes a multi-year process which may continue beyond the lifespan of a single sustainability report before it results in something that actually makes an external impact on society or the environment. In this case, investment in innovation and the innovation process may be equally as important as the product of innovation, as without this process, a company may not have a sustainable future. 

Disregarding innovation as a material issue Aspect may also not take into account the fact that a company's customers, and possibly shareholders, expect innovation. For them, the fact that a company innovates is possibly one of the most critical sustainability issues on their agenda. Innovation may "substantively influence" the decisions of stakeholders. The consequences of innovation, especially in branded products, may not always be net positive. Consider obsolescence. Consider consumerism. Consider brawls on Black Friday. Consider workers in China committing suicide. Consider effects on employment demographics through changes in technology. Innovation is a critical element of any company's sustainability impacts, both internal and external, both positive and negative, and therefore might merit a more prominent place in a company's material reporting. 

At present, if you define innovation as material for your business and/or your stakeholders, the only option you have in G4 is to force-fit innovation into an existing Category / Aspect.

GRI Implementation Manual Table of Aspects

Maybe innovation is part of the Economic Performance material aspect? The G4 performance indicators that support this Aspect include economic value generated, climate change risks, benefit plan obligations and financial assistance received from governments. None of these are indicators of innovation process or products.

Maybe innovation is part of the Indirect Economic Impacts material Aspect? Here the performance indicators relate to infrastructure investments, and in G4-EC8, "significant identified positive and negative indirect economic impacts the organization has". This includes a range of possible examples from changing the productivity of organizations or society, to enhancing skills and knowledge, to the economic impact of the use of products and services. The output of innovation may bring some of these indirect economic impacts... but if the ability of a company to innovate is material, rather than the outcome of innovation, then this indicator would also be less relevant.

There does not appear to be another material Aspect in G4 which is a good home for innovation. Maybe innovation is in every process and should be part of the Disclosure on Management Approach for every single aspect reported. Innovation in the approach to Energy, Emissions, Supplier Assessment for Labor Practices etc?  That might result in a rather disjointed report about innovation, with half sentences here and there throughout the report, and no strategic treatment of innovation as a way of doing business which is integral and critical for sustainable success.

The option in G4, therefore, one of the non-prescriptive features, is to create your own material Aspect topic.
Author's note: A material topic is a material issue which is not one of the pre-defined material Aspects in G4. If you do-it-yourself, you call it a topic, not an Aspect.

Let's say a company, known as a leader in innovation, 3M, were to create a material topic in its next G4 report and call it Innovation. In doing so, 3M would have to create performance indicators relevant to this topic. The 3M 2013 Sustainability Report gives us an example of how this might look. 3M has a New Product Vitality Index (NPVI) which measures the percentage of net sales of products introduced within the last five years as compared to total net sales.

Starbucks, one of Forbes' most innovative companies, looks at innovation in another way. the external impact of encouraging an innovative approach in the community.

Cisco's 2013 CSR Report has a performance indicator for the number of employees engaged in innovation. Innovation is part of the Cisco culture and it is measured, among other things, by the number of employees who confirm they are encouraged to find new ways of doing things. 

The outcome of the above different examples of innovation practice may be both internal and external in terms of their impacts on the company and impacts on society. For each, a company would need to define this Aspect or topic Boundary in order to be in accordance with G4.

Therefore, in reporting with the G4 framework, you can see that there is enough flexibility to create a report around what is most material for your company, whether you apply the ready-made materiality content or create your own. I guess that means applying innovation to the use of the G4 framework. HaHa. See, it's working already. The key thing is to decide what's really critical for the sustainability of your business and your stakeholders, and apply the relevant approaches and measures consistently, and report them transparently.

A similar force-fit problem/opportunity applies to several other company sustainability issues. I have a list :). I'll come back to this now and again here on the CSR Reporting Blog, your global resource for CSR and Sustainability reporting info, insights, fun, headaches and references to ice-cream.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) 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)

How to say Sustainability in a Poster

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

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

Day One Wednesday 22nd May

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

 

Day Two Thursday 23rd May 

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

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

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

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

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

Day Three Friday 24th May

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

Ten Innovative Sustainability Reports

What does Innovation in Sustainability Reporting mean? According to CorporateRegister.com, who added this new category in the reporting awards line-up this year, it is all about evolution:

"CR reporting evolves continuously. Some reports consist of mini-sites which incorporate new features of web technology. Others demonstrate new ways of approaching a reporting issue, of interacting with stakeholders, of presenting an overall picture. Which report demonstrates an innovation which may be adopted by other organisations, and which may help reporting evolve?"

 

The ten companies shortlisted in this category obviously think they have something to add to our sustainability reporting evolution. Of these companies, five are from the U.S., three from Asia (Korea, China and Malaysia) and two from Europe (France and the Netherlands). There are 966 pages of content (although the one report is a website download and is 302 pages!, so forgive me if I didn't read each one with total meticulousness). All but one of these reports are written in accordance with the GRI Framework, with five at Level A or A+.  

 

Before I go on, I will subtly remind you to VOTE. The voting closes in a less than a couple of weeks. I do think it's important to recognize great reporting. Remember, if you vote in each category, you could win a cash prize every week until the voting closes!

 

 

I had a look at the ten reports shortlisted in this category, on a mission to find what is evolutionary (and innovative) about their reporting. Here, in alpha order, are my conclusions:

 

ALCATEL LUCENT Corporate Responsibility Report 2011

GRI A+, 179 pages, Technology Hardware Sector, France

 

One thing that is nicely innovative about the presentation of this report is the hyperlinked PDF. I just love PDF's which enable fast navigation, so that you can reach each section and subsection in the document efficiently. Alcatel Lucent call this the "Smart PDF". Absolutely! I recommend Smart PDF's  to all reporters. Hyperlink your PDF. It makes reports so much easier to read.

But that's not all....

Alcatel Lucent have incorporated an Augmented Reality experience into their report. By downloading an App for iPhone/iPad or Android smartphone or tablet, and, using the App to connect to an image in the report, the App automatically opens up a video of the person in the static image.

 

Alcatel Lucent says: "Augmented Reality could dramatically change the way we use mobile phones! This technology uses recognition of images in reports, magazines, advertisements and websites to provide immediate access to additional information on your smartphone." What better way to demonstrate this company's technological prowess and innovative approach than by offering an example of how this works. I tried it, and it does what it promises! 

AMD Inc, 2011 Corporate Responsibility Report

GRI A, 114 pages, Technology Hardware Sector, U.S.

Here is another reporter using the wonders of modern technology to present their report. Not only is the report online and downloadable in both full and summary PDFs, it is also available as an ipad App and an Android App.  The tablet version contains additional content in the form of videos, interactive graphics and links to AMD’s web pages. The App culture is definitely here to stay and the reports of the future will all be in this format, no doubt. Kudos to AMD for getting ahead of the game (AMD is not the first company to publish a Sustainability Report and/or Annual report as an App, but it's still new enough to be considered evolutionary and innovative). AMD also uses a QR code for interactive use of the Summary PDF.

This report is actually AMD's 17th report. There aren't all that many companies who have delivered that many reports. There's something to be said for reinventing your reporting year after year.

China Southern Power Grid Co Ltd 2011 CSR Report

GRI Undeclared Level, 87 pages, Electricity Sector, China

 

The evolutionary and innovative thing about this report is the inclusion of an external rating by experts from the China CSR Report Rating Panel selected by the CSR Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Economics Department. The rating provided to China Southern Power Grid is reported with commentaries from four of the panel experts. While these commentaries are exclusively positive, the evolutionary thing here is the presentation of the detailed comments in full. This is not a first, of course, but it is by no means widely accepted practice either. Sharing the feedback of report readers and evaluators is a feature of reporting that we will see more of in the future.

Another interesting piece of content in this report is the attention to ethnic minorities. In China Southern Power's service area, there are 34 ethnic minorities, and the CSR Report details these.

Coca Cola Enterprises Inc, CR&S Report 2011/2012

GRI B+, 42 pages, Beverage Sector, U.S.

This report opens with a question: "How can a drink build a more sustainable tomorrow?".  While many reports use the question technique to raise issues and address them in their reporting, this is still not so widely used as a reporting practice. It's good, because reading a question immediately starts your brain ticking over to develop an answer. It engages you straight away. 

 

Another nice thing is the Deliver/Inspire (Deliver for Today, Inspire for Tomorrow) Spotlights inserted throughout this report. Using people to tell the story about what they have delivered and what's inspiring them is a leading-edge way to make the report come alive. It's always best if real people tell your company CSR story. Again, not a first, but definitely something we should see more of in reports.

 

Similarly, external stakeholder voices are included in this report, also in the form of questions. Each main section starts with a question from an external stakeholder which is responded to by a CCE exec. It's a nice touch, and an innovative practice.

 

Korail Sustainability Report 2011

Korea Railroad Association, GRI A+, 101 pages, Transportation Sector, Republic of  Korea

 

The thing that stuck me about this report is this:

 

"Media Analysis :We analyzed 3,246 media reports regarding KORAIL between 2010 and 2011, in order to identify our sustainability issues and use them in selecting issues to be reported. These issues primarily concerned consumer issues, community involvement & development and response to climate change." This was supplemented by other forms of direct stakeholder engagement in order to distill all issues into a nice-looking materiality matrix, containing 10 core issues, grouped into Emerging, Medium and High categories. The use of Media Analysis to support the materiality process is a good approach, and while other companies may do this as part of a regular business intelligence process, it is rarely mentioned in Sustainability Reports. 

 

Another nice touch is the way Korail sets out its future growth and development strategy, with the aspiration of becoming a Global Green Cultural Service Provider. Moving from the narrower paradigm of rail network services to a much broader role in society, Korail maps out the route to 2020 in a visual way. This forward looking approach in reporting provides context for future confidence that the company growth plans are aligned with sustainability commitments and opportunities.

 

Lockheed Martin Corporate Sustainability Report 2011

Not GRI, 46 pages, Aerospace and Defense Sector, U.S.

Lockheed Martin’s 2011 Corporate Sustainability Report was designed as an interactive, electronic “book.” For those who like digital presentation in this format, it works well and enables quick navigation through active links.

What I liked about Lockheed's report is the visual presentation of diversity in its workforce demographics - including the number of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, minorities, veterans, gender and education level.

Merck and Co Inc, Corporate Responsibility Report 2011

GRI A, 301 pages (web-download), Pharma and Biotech Sector, U.S.

Merck has a dedicated report microsite,  and also a PDF download. The PDF is over 300 pages long, and, as you can imagine, goes into quite some detail. Almost every topic has its own page, some have several. One piece of detail that I liked and which you don't often find in Sustainability Reports is the breakdown of workplace injury types. I often think that workplace safety does not get enough exposure in Sustainability Reporting, despite it being one of the most essential prerequisites of a sustainable business. Merck sets out the detail of what injuries occur and how in their 2011 report.

Nike Inc., FY10/11 Sustainable Business Performance Summary

GRI B, 81 pages, Household Goods and Textiles, U.S.

Nike shines as a leader in sustainability thinking and practice, and this is reflected in the many aspects of Nike's report that are innovative, evolutionary and very engaging. (You should check out the Nike CR website which also hosts the corporate responsibility report, if you haven't already seen it.)  In the FY10/11 report, Nike presents the conclusions of an analysis  of meta-trends (prepared with SustainAbility) - trends which have shaped Nike's sustainability strategy and approach and offer opportunities for innovation. These are presented in a form of materiality-type matrix which shows the trends that represent a risk to the current business model and those which provide business opportunity.  

Nike's own Sustainability "Considered Indexes"  for Footwear and Apparel also seem to me to be leading edge in both practice and reporting. These Indexes measure to what extent sustainability thinking has been used in the design process of Nike products (as choices at the design phase significantly influence life-cycle impacts). In fact, Nike has developed several proprietary Indexes which measure different aspects of Nike's value chain sustainability performance and impacts. The Manufacturing Index Metrics Roadmap presented in this Sustainability Report, for example,  is a transparent representation of how Nike measures and recognizes process in its supply chain. Reporting on progress in this way can certainly be considered innovative.

Royal Dutch Shell, Corporate Sustainability Report 2011

GRI A+, 38 pages, Oil and Gas Sector, The Netherlands

Shell is another reporter which has incorporated QR coding, and this summary report of 38 pages is the tip of the iceberg of much greater content on the Shell website (the summary report contains links to additional content). What I like about Shell's reporting is its storytelling style - every section is written in a narrative which provides informative and immensely readable context and background, which is accessible and eye-level for all readers. Is that innovative and evolutionary? Possibly. Not too many companies have mastered this art.

Also, environmental and social performance data is presented for ten years (2002-2011) which is some achievement.

Shinhan Financial Group Co Ltd CSR Report 2011

GRI A+, 90 pages, Investment Companies Sector, Republic of Korea

The first thing that strikes you about this report is its cover page which presents a concept which is probably not all that familiar to most of us :)

Shinhan explains this in this way: "The essence of 'compassionate finance' lies in making the world a better place through the main businesses of finance." Yes, that's definitely innovative. The narrative spells out in great detail what Shinhan means by compassionate finance and what actions are in place to drive compassionate behaviors at this financial group.

 

What is  nice about the presentation of this report is that it's filled with smiling faces of Shinhan people. While I suspect that every hour at work might not be Happy Hour at Shinhan, the report does present a sense of optimism and positive spirit. That's something that more companies could learn from - without going overboard :) 

Shinhan also details the social responsibility profiles of each of the companies in the Shinhan Group - this helps stakeholders understand the different impacts of the individual components of the group, and offers those interested in specific companies a reasonable level of content. This is not frequently done by holding companies or large conglomerations in corporate-level sustainability reports. Both the group-level view as well as the detailed view by company make this report somewhat evolutionary.

Ten reports, ten examples of innovative reporting practice. Which one gets your vote? Or are you spoilt for choice?

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) 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  (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)