Speeky Engleesh 2

Last year, I wrote a post about the English errors in translated Sustainability Reports. I know that the content counts, and errors in translation are not always easy to avoid.  I try not to judge a company's report on the quality of its English translation and I am appreciative of companies who make the effort to produce their report in English, enabling me to read it. Most reports which contain translation errors have a certain charm.  I can't help but chuckle.

Here is my pick of 2011:

The Xinguang Knitting Company Ltd from Guangdong, China
Sustainability Report 2010

• Our sustainability report publishes once a year.
• During the period of selecting indicators, Xinguang mainly thought about the relevance, materiality and availability of different concrete indicators.
• When enterprise performs its role of corporate social responsibility, it focus on the responsibility to employees, environment and society,
• Certainly, our performance of social responsibility has a wide range of contents. We make donation, obey the law and help low income groups. And we also try our best to make more contribution in different respects. All in all, figuring out our minds, we put the work into practice and create a system characterized by corporate social responsibility.
• Nowadays, because of the shortage of cotton, the instability of petroleum byproducts and labor shortage, the cost of raw materials has been rising at the rate of 10% to 15% per year. Within 5 years, this trend will not change. And here comes a question---how to cope with these unbeneficial factors?
• For the company, staff is the most important stakeholder.
• In 2010, Xinguang added plenty of fitness facilities and entertainment equipment, such as Bing-bong ball and Billiard equipments, so that employees can increase the range of leisure activities
• In order to eliminate discrimination and race conflicts, Xinguang has developed some employment policies.
• From the charts above that picture the proportion of female and male, we can discover that there is not much difference between the number of female and male employees. Consequently there wasn't any case of discrimination reported in 2010.
• The consumption of domestic water forms the lion's share of Xinguang's total consumption.
• We promise to keep doing improvement and with this we crate a workplace which helps our staff to play to their respective strengths.

Bing-bong ball? Crate a workplace ? Chuckle away..... Seriously, though, I commend Xinguang, a privately-owned 400 people garment manufacturer in China for producing a report and taking CSR seriously. If ever I visit Guangdong, I will buy them all ice-cream!

And while we are on the subject, here is another one:

Ambuja Cements Ltd Corporate Sustainable Development Report 2010

• We were facing a lot of problem in maintaining the day to day quality and in turn our whole operational efficiency was getting affected be it blasting efficiency, loading efficiency or hauling efficiency.
• While these activities are carried out, the impact could be upbeat as well as downbeat.
• At Ambuja, we recognize community as one of our prime stakeholders and we endeavor to reach out to it to accomplish our social responsibilities. The surrounding communities are our partners in our march to progress.
• Those involved in successful micro enterprises are able to generate income that has given them a degree of power hitherto unheard of.
• The cultivation of wadis or orchards has been beneficial to several economically backward families, especially tribals.
• These efforts strive to improve the quality of education and make schools child-friendly.
• The Company has adopted structured benefit schemes to ensure wellbeing of employees in case of both post-retiral life and similar eventualities.

In fairness, Ambuja Cements have produced a great report and demonstrate some very interesting and impressive sustainable practices. The company is a publicly traded company in India, employing over 5,700 people. A few chuckles here and there do not detract from the positive reporting of this company. In fact, I quite enjoyed it. Almost as much as ice-cream.

 

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

Sustainability in any language

An interesting article about the power of language to determine thought  (and we all know that thought leads to action) was posted by Lis Duarte on Twitter. The article quotes linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf who first posited in the 1930s that language is so powerful that it can determine thought. Certain words, it seems, can shape our thoughts and feelings, depending on the language in which they are presented. For example, you may read the words:

This may not create much of a reaction . But then you read the words:

These words, on the other hand,  may make you rush to read the latest sustainability report published. This might take you to General Mills' Sustainability Report 2011, a company which employs 33,000 people in the pursuit of Nourishing Lives (funny, I thought Campbell's Soup had cornered that concept). Anyhow, General Mills' report starts out with the words "We made a lot of progress in 2010 and have a lot to be proud about". Not lacking in modesty, then, Ken Powell, CEO, then talks about how General Mills has improved the health profile of products and increased corporate philanthropy and employee volunteering, as well as some interesting initatives on renewable energy sourcing and a new oat burner which both makes products and provides steam for heating.  Back to health, I was caught on the progress GM has made in reducing sugar content of breakfast cereals advertized to children which is now under 10g per serving. What I don't know here, not being a nutritionist,  is whether 10g is good or bad (it's better than previously) but compared to industry norms, existing regulations and recommended serving sizes, whether this is good enough, or just good, or not even scratching the surface. General Mills provides a separate brochure called the Benefits of Breakfast Cereals which goes some way to explaining the context around breakfast cereal food properties.

The GM Sustainability Report is not aligned with the GRI framework but GM has established a cross functional team to evaulate the merits of GRI based reporting. While this report covers a lot of ground in its 86 pages, it seems rather light on data and is mostly about stories and policies. A more rigorous (and assured) framework for GM reporting would be welcomed. Still, we were talking about words....

If you read the words:

you might not be motivated to rush out to prepare your company's first Sustainability Report, despite the fact that the mainstreaming of sustainability reporting is now a clear mission for the GRI and many stakeholders. However, if you read: 

you may start putting pen to paper immediately. 

If  you read the words:

you may be prompted to contact me. Hahahaha. Who said I am not allowed to shamelessly promote my report reviewing and writing services on this blog (very) occasionally? However, if you read :

you might consider contacting a Sustainability Reporting consultant in Moscow. And then contact me. Haha.

(Disclaimer: If the above does not mean "We need help writing our sustainability report", please refer to Google Translate. The writer bears no liability for the consequences of whatever the above translated sentence might mean!)

On the other hand, if you read the words:

you may be prompted to forget all about reporting and go back to dealing with the more important things in life . Chunky Monkey is the same in any language.



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