The Wizard of Sustainability

Dare Ilori has journeyed from the bottom up to become Merlin Entertainments’ Group Head of Sustainability and ‘Wizard’ of Sustainability Performance and Progress. Dare has been in his current role for three years, focusing on sustainability strategy, carbon reporting, supply chain management, energy efficiency, waste management and regulatory compliance.

Dare will be joining me at the edie Smarter Sustainability Conference on 27th February 2018 and will present his experience and guidance in one of the morning breakout sessions which is a deep dive discussion on environmental impacts reporting.

Merlin Entertainments is the largest European entertainments company operating in Europe. Merlin runs 125 attractions in 25 countries across four continents with brands that include LEGOLAND Parks,  SEA LIFE aquariums and the iconic Madam Tussauds that operates with many attractions across the globe.

Can't resist digressing, as I recall many exciting visits to Madame Tussauds in London as a child and later with my own kids. You may not know that Madame Tussaud (German wax modeler Marie Tussaud (1761-1850)) founded the first Wax Museum on Baker Street in London in 1835, after learning the art of creating lifelike figures out of wax during the French Revolution, claiming to have made her first ones directly from the heads of the recently guillotined.

Merlin operates many more fun places such as Alton Towers (popular spot for our annual day trips when I was a schoolgirl), Teh Coca-Cola London Eye, Blackpool Tower (another nostalgic brand for me, as all my family summer holidays as a child were spent in Blackpool) and more modern attractions such as Shrek's Adventure in London. So you know that sustainability can be fun, but in a business such as this, it has to be extra super fun! And that was my impression after talking with Dare Ilori, who I am looking forward to meeting in person at the edie Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference in London next year.

"I graduated as an industrial chemist 17 years ago with a great passion for environmental chemistry. In 2007, I enrolled for a Master’s Degree in Waste and Environmental Management and graduated in 2009. In the same year, I joined the waste and recycling department at Thorpe Park Resort which is owned and managed by Merlin Entertainments. Initially the role was to manage waste and recycling only, but within a year, the role expanded to include other environmental management activities (waste management, energy management, sustainability reporting and environmental management system) for the park. 
I realised that the future of sustainability is that these aspects need to be integrated into the management of the business itself. Over time, employers may no longer be able to recruit an energy manager, a recycling & waste manager, an environmental management systems manager, carbon manager and others separately. 
Not long after that, and based on the interest we generated through a range of activities to improve our environmental performance at Thorpe Park Resorts, I expanded my responsibilities to include all of Merlin Entertainments' strategy and environmental approach for all our sites at a corporate level in 2015. 
Businesses nowadays must factor environmental impacts at a strategic level where knowledge and learnings can be shared and implemented across multiple sites. This increases both effectiveness and efficiencies."

This is a super example of bottom-up sustainability, starting by proving the benefits from the ground up, and demonstrating that advantage to one business unit has benefit to the wider organisation. Dare Ilori has driven engagement at a site-by-site level, with each operation getting involved and delivering results.

For the Group as a whole, Dare manages the Green Capex fund; capital expenditure designed to support investment in environmental initiatives to help Merlin continue to reduce its carbon footprint while at the same time deliver operational savings. As a way of managing energy spend on sites, the company use internal metric of energy spend per £1m revenue to identify sites that will need to be prioritized for energy audits and reduction focus. The Green Capex fund has been instrumental in delivering recommended projects from energy efficiency audits. Some of the projects delivered with the Green Capex fund are installation of LED lights at Sydney Cluster Australia, chiller optimization at Sealife Istanbul, solar powered cars at Junior Driving School LEGOLAND Florida and variable speed drive on air handling units at Madame Tussauds London.

In other areas, Merlin strives to Be a Force for Good and operates several programs designed to positively impact marine and wildlife conservation, support charitable causes for children and ensure accessibility at all its venues. Merlin's Magic Wand, for example, is a charity that makes it possible for thousands of seriously ill, disabled and disadvantaged children to enjoy a memorable day out at a Merlin attraction every year or provide Magic Spaces for those too sick to experience an attraction firsthand.

In terms of reporting, Merlin Entertainments has opted to report its scope 1 and 2 carbon performance within its annual report and accounts.

I am looking forward to hearing his more perspectives and the challenges he has faced and overcome in order to help Merlin Entertainments deliver business and environmental objectives. We will also aim to hear Dare’s view regarding scope 3 emission reporting by Merlin Entertainments Plc.


Will we see you there?



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  

WARNING: Strictly only for Reporting Geeks

The Urban Dictionary says: "Geek: An outwardly normal person who has taken the time to learn technical skills. Geeks have as normal a social life as anyone, and usually the only way to tell if someone is a geek is if they inform you of their skills." Merriam Webster's third definition of geek is more straightforward: "an enthusiast or expert especially in a technological field or activity." In the CSR-Reporting Blog dictionary, reporting geeks are simply "folks who breathe, eat, sleep and live all things sustainability reporting."

In the world of sustainability reporting, geeks have a place all of their own. Without geeks, reporting would never have achieved the major impact on the world it has had to date. Without geeks, we would still be begging companies for tidbits of information and clambering to understand whether they are performing in an ethical, responsible and sustainable manner. Without geeks, we would not have the opportunity to peruse the thousands of sustainability reports in all shapes, colors, sizes and languages that are published each year around the world, enriching our lives and making us feel that the world is a better place. Without geeks, sustainability reporting simply wouldn't happen - and then we would all be utterly miserable and the planet would be doomed.

So how do you know if you are a reporting geek? Here are some of the tell-tale signs:

• Your read at least one Sustainability Report before breakfast every day
• When someone asks you what you want for your birthday, you say: a brand new Sustainability Report 
• You worst nightmare is a Sustainability Report that doesn't have a GRI Content Index
• You read your kids bedtime stories from your favorite sustainability reports
• You feel physically nauseous when someone talks badly of sustainability reporting
• You recall that, as a child, whenever you were asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, you always answered a sustainability reporter
• You even read sustainability reports in languages you don't understand
• You take a few sustainability reports to the gym every day and read them as you jog
• You're in a restaurant and the first thing you look for on the menu is a materiality matrix
• You prefer to read sustainability reports to watching Star Trek
• Your favorite Christmas gift is a nicely-wrapped Sustainability Report
• The shredder in your office has never seen a Sustainability Report
• Your spouse is citing a Sustainability Report in your upcoming divorce
• You attend the edie Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference in London every year.

The next conference, the seventh annual, in February 2018, designed by reporting geeks for reporting geeks and potential reporting geeks, boasts a stellar line up of speakers and an exciting program that any reporting geek will find invigorating, informative, incredible and impactful.

An opportunity to debate with experts, explore with peers, learn with other professionals, moan and groan in a safe environment where everybody empathizes, ask questions that only the reporting community can relate to and share in the fun that is sustainability reporting, the edie Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference will turn you into a reporting geek if you are not one already, or it will make you a geekier geek if you are already showing the signs. And who wouldn't want to put reporting geek on their resume? Can you afford to miss this unique opportunity? The CSR-Reporting Blog is offering a special discount for reporting and aspiring reporting geeks, so contact me if you want to take advantage of that.

What can the geek community expect at the conference?

• Latest updates from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures 
• Insights in aligning with the the non-financial EU directive 
• Stories from innovators who are reshaping reporting using creative, digital methods
• Discussion and tools to unlock the power of meaningful data 
• Best practice examples for shaping your report to reach multiple and diverse audiences
• Constructive insight from global experts on the key elements of a good report
• Totally geeky conversations
• A delicious lunch
• A lot of fun in the company of many geeks
• No ice cream, sorry

As the Chair of the conference, I will be around all day to meet and reconnect with you all, make sure things go smoothly, add a little provocation to the panel discussions, and lead one of the breakout sessions with a deep-dive on reporting on environmental and supply chain impacts. Sound geeky enough for you?

Of course, there are those of you out there that are secretly reporting geeks but afraid to admit it. It's time to come out. Reporting is mainstream. Reporting geekiness is something to be proud of. Proudly register for the edie Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference here (don't forget to email me for your discount) and tell all your friends. They will thank you.


See ya in London!

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

Humanizing sustainability

We often position sustainability so far above the radar of our day-to-day reach that it fails to inspire, energize and motivate. By using corporate-speak, legaleeze and PR-approved jargon  for getting the sustainability communications message across, we have to realize that we are missing an opportunity to create an engaging conversation about sustainability. That's what Emma Ward calls humanizing sustainability. Making sustainability about real life, about people and how we relate to each other, and about the things that matter to us can only happen if it's a great conversation, and not a stuffy old report. You have to agree that this is a compelling sort of idea.

Emma Ward is the Group Sustainability Manager for McNicholas, a family business in the UK, established in the 1940s and currently employing around 1,400 people in the construction and engineering sector. McNicholas provides engineering services to the multi--utility sector, telecommunications, gas, power, water and renewable energy sectors and more.  

Emma will be joining me and a fabulous line-up of speakers and a distinguished group of delegates at the edie Sustainability Reporting conference on February 23rd in London, where she will engage in a discussion all about innovative ways of engaging stakeholders.

As I do before every conference, I like to get to know some of our speakers and get a general sense of what's going on. I had a chat with Emma and here are some of the insights she shared with me.

How long have you been with McNicholas and what's your favorite part of the job?

Emma: I have been with McNicholas for 14 years. I joined as an environmental advisor and have grown our approach at McNicholas from an environmental focus to the point where sustainability is now a major part of our business strategy. It’s sort of my baby! I think it’s the variety that makes it so exciting - the role covers some many different facets. Another thing I enjoy is the sense of changing the face of the construction industry… generally people think of construction as a sort of “mucky” industry. With sustainability, we present a clean and professional face of the industry as one that cares about people and the environment.

What’s driven the increased focus on sustainability at McNicholas?

Emma: Although we have been pushed to align with regulation and increasing expectations from our Clients and from the communities we work in, we as a corporate are seeing genuine business benefits from applying sustainability as a risk management tool. I think it is this that keeps up the momentum rather than it just being a passing fad. In this day and age, a business plan can’t just focus on the financial and commercial risks, the environmental and social ones need to be just as high on the list. By using this new strategic approach, we are more involved at the planning stages enabling us to build better relationships with communities, respect what is important to them and help to improve things. But a sustainable and ethical approach to business has always been our culture. We are a family-owned company… sustainability has gone hand in hand with growing the business. At the same time, we stay true to our values as a people company. We have always tried to make sustainability about people as much as about any other aspect. It’s a way of humanizing everything.

How do you define what’s most important from a sustainability standpoint?

Emma:  We have recently reviewed our approach and tried to go back to basics on what makes us good, what is our way and why our clients want to work with us. In doing so, we have completed a materiality assessment, using input from our internal stakeholders and some of our key clients – large companies who are themselves leaders in sustainability practice – to understand their expectations of McNicholas. Our new strategy, entitled ‘Our World’, has nine activity streams covering the environment, people and culture.

What’s going to change with the new strategy?

Emma: I believe ’Our World’ will help us engage even better with the people that make McNicholas great and ensure we are meeting the expectations of our clients and communities. One of the things we decided to do differently is give each of our Board members responsibility for leading one of our strategy streams BUT in an area different to their main area of expertise. For example, the CEO will lead our community stream, our Human Resources Director will lead the natural environment stream and so forth. We wanted them to be involved from the perspective of a sustainability leader rather than from the perspective of a subject matter expert. That way, they will ask new questions and perhaps even learn something new.

What makes a good sustainability report?

Emma: It needs to be light enough to dip in and out of. A report shouldn’t be too intense – it should be short, concise, snappy and has to engage me straight away. The look and tone must be fresh and navigation should be easy so that the reader is in control of how to read the report. So many reports make that decision for the reader. They define a route through the report whereas I think we should be in control, not the report. Our own report process at McNicholas is changing to reflect this. We have always written fairly light reading reports in the past, but now we plan to use the website more to communicate our sustainability strategy and achievements. This will help to keep the report less about just a year-end wrap-up, and more about a conversation about what’s going on more regularly. Less structure, more control for the reader. We want to keep sustainability conversational and personal. It should be fresh and engaging. Hopefully, our new website will be ready in a few weeks.

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

Fresh and engaging. Those are not words we usually associate with sustainability. Interesting how sustainability came to be so stuffy. Well, it doesn't have to be and Emma is a living example of that. She talks with a lively passion about what she's doing and she's very clear about how to make sustainability work in her organization. It's called humanizing sustainability. If you haven't tried it yet, I am sure Emma will be handing out free tips in February. Hope to see you there!

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  

How will you simplify your supply chain this year?

Here's a little one-question one-answer quiz.

Question: 

What's the second best thing you can do to mitigate supply chain risk in 2016? 

Answer: (please select one)

a) Attend the Sedex 2016 conference

b) Attend the Sedex 2016 conference

c) Attend the Sedex 2016 conference

d) Attend the Sedex 2016 conference

Whether you selected answer a) b) c) or d), read on. Learn more about why the Sedex Conference in March in London in 2016 should be part of your schedule.  

I grew up in the supply chain. In my formative years as a young manager with Procter and Gamble, I was responsible for logistics in Scotland and Northern Ireland in my very first management role, and then, over eight years until I decided to move on to pastures new, I took on successively diverse and challenging roles across different aspects of the supply chain in Europe including purchasing, customer service, distribution center management and more. And today, working with clients on strategy and reporting, I always feel at home discussing the opportunities (and risks) relating to ethical and sustainable supply. In that context, Sedex often crops up as one of the most influential players in the field of sustainable sourcing and responsible supply chain practice. I am looking forward to attending the 2016 conference, not only because I'll have the chance to speak (you all know how I love to talk), but mainly because I have the feeling that I am going to learn 

a lot.

Sedex is a not for profit membership organisation dedicated to driving improvements in ethical and responsible business practices in global supply chains. As the largest collaborative platform for sharing ethical supply chain data, Sedex is an innovative and effective supply chain management solution, helping companies to reduce risk, protect their reputation and improve supply chain practices. 

I could write reams about the vital importance of ethical supply chain management and the increasing risk as businesses become more global in scope and more complex in scale. It's also a gobbler-upper of resources. Monitoring, audits, training, communications, evaluations, assessments in a context of increasingly strict regulatory requirements means that both customers and suppliers must invest significant resources to stay not only cost-effective but also low-risk. At the same time, the supply chain, if you treat it right, can be a fabulous source of innovation and creativity, enabling business expansion and growth. And of course, no Sustainability Report is complete without critical supply chain disclosures. It seems that Sedex is in the right place at the right time. And by attending the Sedex 2016 Conference (#Sedex16), you will be too! Check out the agenda here.  

I posed a few questions to the Sedex CEO, Jonathan Ivelaw-Chapman, about supply chain sustainability and the conference. Check out his insights: 

What's the most important aspect of your role at Sedex? What's most challenging and what's most satisfying? 

Jonathan: Since joining Sedex, what has struck me is our people and the passion they bring to the organisation. For me, it’s our values and our people that are the most important aspect at Sedex. The most satisfying part of what I am doing is seeing our employees engage in future-thinking in fresh and innovative ways. They are all here because they care and are passionate, and the talent and energy we have seems endless. This is wonderful to observe and participate in. 

Coming from the technology industry, where for nearly 30 years, hype, language and behaviors were all about self-justification and increased investment, I now sense an exit to the “hype” that we have all experienced. I want to help avoid any similarities to the IT industry, by bringing clarity and affordability into the sustainability industry. The challenge for Sedex is to help our industry and membership navigate in an increasingly complex sustainability world. We will do this by simplifying our language, facilitating opportunities to work collaboratively, and giving our members an industry roadmap, with a vision of the way responsible sourcing can work. 

The Sedex Conference 2016 theme runs under the banner of simplification. Everyone seems to talk about the sustainability landscape becoming increasingly complex! How realistic is simplification?

Jonathan: The business and sustainability landscape is rapidly changing. From natural resource scarcity to human rights, child labour to an evolving regulatory landscape, our industry is facing a range of challenges. With all these new topics coming up, sustainability is becoming a complicated space with new initiatives, frameworks, certifications, and schemes, creating silos in industries, countries, topic areas themselves.

Sedex is already looking at simplifying supply chains and recognising the interconnectivities between different issues such as bribery and health and safety and whether there could be more effective ways for companies and their suppliers to manage these issues as one as opposed to treating them in silos. 

There is no need to re-invent the wheel but rather try to scale up – pick what’s relevant to you and collaborate with other stakeholders. We might not have all the right answers just yet, but we are getting there. The conference will provide a great forum to discuss and address the challenges and hear from the industry leaders on how they are going about simplifying the challenging issues and approach to tackling them. 

What's going to be different about the SEDEX Conference 2016? What highlights should we look out for? 

Jonathan: This will be our largest conference so far, bringing together around 1,000 leaders in responsible sourcing for two days of discussions. The conference will be live-streamed and for the first time, we will also have live interviews with conference speakers straight from the conference hall. The conference agenda will cover the most relevant topics for supply chain sustainability – from modern slavery legislation, how organisations can quantify, value, and improve their impact on society, to best practice in agricultural sustainability measurement and reporting tools and resources and much more. 

We have an exciting line up of speakers – from multinational companies such as Kellogg and Mars, to organisations such as International Trade Centre and Thomson Reuters across plenary sessions, master-classes, workshops and spotlight talks. 

For the first time ever we will also host the VIP Networking Dinner event at the Barbican’s tropical plant conservatory in the heart of the City of London. Our conference delegates often ask for more opportunities to network and this dinner, designed for just 150 guests, will provide an exclusive opportunity to connect with industry experts and discuss hot sustainability topics. We are delighted to have John Morrison, Executive Director of the Institute for Human Rights and Business, speaking during the dinner. As a well-known and influential voice on business and human rights, and a highly engaging and knowledgeable speaker, John's speech will be a real highlight of the evening.

***********

And now another little one-question one-answer quiz:

Question: 

What's the first best thing you can do to mitigate supply chain risk in 2016? 

Answer: (please select one)

a) Attend the Sedex 2016 conference

b) Attend the Sedex 2016 conference

c) Attend the Sedex 2016 conference

d) Attend the Sedex 2016 conference 

Look forward to seeing you there!
Drop me a note if you'd like a 50% discount on the standard ticket price on registration. Who wouldn't?



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  

Delivering sustainability to 29 million addresses

Henry VIII ordered the creation of the first national postal service in the UK, which began in 1516 and was called 'The King’s Posts'. A few things have changed since then, including the name of the UK postal service as well as the number of people using it. Today, Royal Mail is the UK’s designated Universal Postal Service Provider and the only company that has the capability to deliver a ‘one-price-goes-anywhere’, six-days-a-week service for a range of letters and parcels to more than 29 million addresses across the UK. General Logistics Systems (GLS) is the Royal Mail's European parcels business with one of the largest parcel delivery networks in Europe handling more than 404 million parcels in 2013-2014.  In October 2013, Royal Mail successfully floated on the London Stock Exchange and was subsequently admitted into the FTSE 100. More than 700,000 members of the public bought shares in Royal Mail. Royal Mail employs more than 160,000 people across the group, making it one of Britain's largest employers. One in every 200 people working in the UK is employed by Royal Mail.

Royal Mail's (GRI B+) twelfth annual Corporate Responsibility Report for 2013-2014 is 94 pages short, and follows a stakeholder-centric format demonstrating responsibility to different stakeholder groups in turn. At the heart of this is a materiality assessment that was concluded with a range of stakeholders in a process that is nicely detailed in the report.

The report includes a clearly presented summary of key achievements in the reporting year, "areas to strengthen", and objectives for the coming year. Achievements include improvement in customer satisfaction, stronger employee safety performance, employing people with disabilities, raising £2 million for Prostate Cancer UK charity and reducing GHG emissions, water consumption and waste to landfill. A small but significant example of environmental culture change for resource conservation is the fact that Royal Mail uses 15% fewer rubber bands than in 2010-2011. Sounds like a small detail, but it's all about the daily practice of thousands of people every day.

At the fourth annual Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference in London on 24th February 2015, we will be hearing from the Group Director of Safety, Health, Wellbeing & Sustainability at Royal Mail Group, Shaun Davis. Shaun joined Royal Mail in 2012, and prior to that, he worked in the construction and waste management sectors. I took the opportunity to have a little chat with Shaun ahead of the conference.

ME: How did you get started at the Royal Mail?
SHAUN: Originally, I went to university in order to become a teacher. Later, I realized didn't want to teach, it didn't really feel like my vocation. I was happy to have an opportunity to use my teaching qualifications in a safety and health consultancy and it was there that I got involved in the environmental and sustainability world. As part of my ongoing learning in this field, I enrolled for the WWF ‘One Planet' sustainability-focused Master Degree in Business Administration (MBA). I felt this would give me a stronger basis to have conversations with business leaders in a way they would understand. It was really, really useful. I have been with Royal Mail for 2.5 years now and it's a truly exciting place to be.

ME: What have you achieved in 2.5 years? 
SHAUN: The Royal Mail is a really large organization, it takes several months just to find your way around and get to know what the key issues are. But I think the main thing I can be proud of so far is making the safety team a multi-disciplined team. We have to understand that each business has many different elements, and there's a lot of mileage in integration. Upskilling my team in the area of health and environment and interacting with all parts of the business has been significant progress. We have a service-oriented approach. Our roles only exists as long as there is a business to support, and the service we provide must support the business and not hinder it.

ME: Got an example? 
SHAUN: One of the biggest areas of impact, risk and opportunity is energy efficiency. We operate many processing plants for letters and parcels, and we are delivering mail to 29 million addresses six days a week. We have a massive transportation infrastructure and one of the biggest fleet operations in the UK. We have focused on energy and fuel efficiency as a key priority. Our vehicles have in-cab enhancements using new technologies to ensure efficient fuel consumption and we have provided drivers with fuel-efficiency driving training. Because, in such a large organization, things take time, you have to realize you can't do everything at once. You have to focus on the things that make a difference in different areas of work. We do not design broad scale programs for the entire organization. We prefer to work on an issue by issue basis, addressing the needs as and where they are identified. It means we have to be very clear about both the business and the sustainability connection in order to make the right selection of priorities and allocate resources appropriately. 

ME: What are your views on sustainability reporting?
SHAUN: Our CSR team pulls the report together. I provide relevant input from my area. I think reporting should be forward looking as well as providing historical information. A report should be easy to read and you should be able to get an overview of what the organization does as a whole – a sort of a dashboard view of a company. An interesting point, for example, if you look at Royal Mail and its business value proposition, is that we have a challenging few years ahead. The letter market is declining. Online interactions have taken over the traditional letter market. We need to be considering how our value proposition is changing and how our business will look in the next ten years. We employ around 150,000 people in the UK so we need to have answers to these questions. It's a big responsibility.

ME: Are consumers interested?
SHAUN: We have some brilliant customers, including large scale corporate customers. Some members of the public take an interest, but mainly, it is our shareholders who need our report to review our performance and inform their stakeholders about their own performance and make business decisions. We are a recognizable, respected brand in the community, people look to us to give them a sense of security. They want us to be looking after their interests. In general, they are not looking for our sustainability report, but for the way we deal with them on a daily basis. We are seen as an iconic brand that has a big impact in the community. For some elderly people, the postman might be only the personal interaction they have on a daily basis. For others, a postman in the area might have a broader safety and security benefits, for example, when there are floods or snow, or other reasons that people are housebound in rural areas, the postman may be the one who comes around every day and keeps an eye on things, making sure that people are ok. This may not be in their job description, but there is a natural relationship that builds up in different local communities that prevents people from becoming totally isolated. This is part of the social value we bring, in addition to the major economic contribution we make to the UK economy, and it's what our consumers notice and appreciate.

****

I hope you'll consider joining us in London in February, to engage with, in addition to Shaun, a fabulous line-up, including: 

• Mardi McBrien, Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB)
• Crystal Crawford, Liberty Global
• Paul Toyne, Balfour Beatty (see my chat with Paul here)
• Simon Howard, UK Sustainable Investment & Finance Association (UKSIF)
• Nelmara Arbex, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
• Katie Buchanan, Virgin Media 
• Irene Jakobi, Sustainability Manager, Telekom Austria
• Neil Barrett, Sodexo  (see my chat with Neil here)
• Louise Tyson,  BP 
• Sarah Grey, International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)
• Megan Mitrevski Dale, Coca-Cola Enterprises

See you there? 

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. 

Why YOU HAVE to attend.......

..... the fourth annual Smarter Sustainability Reporting conference. It's on February 24th, 2015 in London.  It's THE annual conference all about sustainability reporting that I chair every year. No, it's not just for reporting geeks, though geeks are thoroughly welcome.

And the reason YOU HAVE to attend is that, for three years now, we have held these totally amazing, informative, content-rich, expertise-packed, opinion-forming, insight-generating, brain-cell-activating, networking-supporting conferences and we still do not have the answer to the question: What is Smarter Sustainability Reporting? We've debated, discussed, shared, chaired, talked, balked, asked, answered, thought, contemplated, ruminated, instigated, irritated, cajoled, encouraged, suggested, digested and just about everything else you do and don't do at conferences... and we still don't have a definitive answer. That's sad. We may have had an answer in the second conference, but then the world changed and we went back to the drawing board at conference three. At this, the fourth annual, we simply have to have an answer. Maybe YOU are the one who can help?

We have a great line-up of expert speakers and panelists - and still more to confirm.

• Nelmara Arbex, Chief Advisor on Innovation in Reporting, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) 
• Sarah Grey, Markets Director, International Integrated Reporting Council, IIRC
• Steve Kenzie, UK Network Secretariat, Global Compact Network
• Simon Howard, Chief Executive Officer, UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF)
• Dr. Paul Toyne, Sustainability Director, Balfour Beatty Construction Services
• Louise Tyson, Head of Reporting, BP
• Katie Buchanan, Head of Sustainability and Reporting, Virgin Media
• Irene Jakobi, Sustainability Manager, Telekom Austria
• Mardi McBrien, Managing Director, Carbon Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB)
• Shaun Davis, Group Director of Safety, Health, Wellbeing &  Sustainability, Royal Mail
• Crystal Crawford, Corporate Responsibility Manager, Liberty Global
• Verity Lawson, Sustainability Reporting Manager, British American Tobacco
• Michaela Rose, Sustainability Advisor, Forum for the Future

You would think that these fantastic experts would have ALL the answers but I can promise YOU, they can't do it on their own. They need YOU.

How do YOU define Smarter Sustainability Reporting? What makes smart smarter? And what makes reporting reporting? From GRI G4 to integrated reports to carbon disclosures to investor interest to innovation to local/global to transparency, creativity and materiality and a whole lot more, we'll be looking to get at the answer that has been evading tens of speakers and hundreds of delegates since the start of our conference series. Do YOU know? Are YOU harboring a totally intelligent response that we are all waiting for? Are YOU willing to share? Will YOU come to the conference and enlighten all of us? 

If YOU decide to come and help us out, I can offer YOU a discount (being the chair has some privileges) and I can promise to be eternally grateful. And so will everybody else. YOUR presence and contribution is absolutely what will make the difference.

That's not to say that in three years of conferences we haven't answered other questions about reporting, the reporting landscape, trends, challenges, risks and opportunities. A mix of practitioner and subject-matter experts, we have always had rich debate and generated a host of action-oriented insights. The feedback from attendees has always been strong. Each conference has been remarkable. The desire to share and learn more about what's going on in reporting is obviously very much alive for both reporting geeks and reporting non-geeks. That's why we keep doing it. 

You may be wondering by now, what's the point of having a conference every year that can't answer its own question? I remember someone quoting some smart famous person who said: if you keep doing the same things, you keep getting the same results. Or something like that, probably more elegantly put. Which is exactly why we continue to shake things up every year. No two conferences are the same. We have a different agenda, different speakers, different round-table talk sessions, different panel discussions and different areas of focus. We don't keep doing the same things but we still don't have the answer to this really truly completely fully exceptionally elusive question: What is Smarter Sustainability Reporting? Obviously, we have been missing something. Yes. We have been missing YOU. So, please come. Please share. Please tell us YOUR answer. Please help make this conference even  more remarkable. 

So: Block out the date in your diary. Contact me for a 15% discount code. Register. Get prepared to share. And watch this space in the run-up to the conference for more posts in conversation with some of our speakers.

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.   

5 ways to make a sustainability report sparkle

Who says that CSR doesn't sparkle? At Tiffany's it certainly does, in more ways than one. Just take a look at Tiffany & Co.'s third Corporate Responsibility Report covering fiscal 2012, and you will see lots of sparkles.

Sparkle 1: A cute sparkling monkey

Sparkle 2: An introductory message from a CEO who is committed to responsible practices.  Michael J. Kowalski is known in the industry as a driving force behind responsible mining and a chain of custody mindset. Take a look at this old but absolutely still relevant case study from Wharton back in 2004. 

Sparkle 3: Industry leadership in responsible mining, and a variety of engagement frameworks to advance the standardization of responsible industry practice, including a statement on hard-rock mining. This includes a very firm declaration: "If reforms are to succeed, we believe that taxpayers must be fairly compensated for minerals taken from public lands, protection of the environment must be enhanced and business certainty for companies and communities dependent on mining must be improved." 

Sparkle 4: An interesting section on how Tiffany & Co. supports beneficiation - a concept which doesn't find its way into too many sustainability reports as its rather sector-specific, but in the mining and minerals sector, it's well-known. There is a whole branch of economics devoted to beneficiation in South Africa, and a national beneficiation strategy. Essentially, beneficiation means adding processes which increase value - for example, cutting and polishing diamonds in the country of extraction adds local economic value and increases the value of exports, providing greater benefit to local populations. Tiffany & Co.'s operations in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa employ over 90% locals and in 2012, over $90 million was  added to these economies through beneficiation. 

Sparkle 5: This is three sparkles rolled into one. A GRI Index (undeclared level), a UN Global Compact Communication on Progress (Tiffany & Co. has participated since 2011) and a detailed Assurance Statement covering a range of metrics and detailed methodology of factors used in all calculations. A well-rounded set of reporting communications which demonstrate commitment and alignment with key transparency and disclosure frameworks. 

Tiffany & Co. will be featuring at the third annual Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference in London on 25th February 2014. I will be there (yep, doing the chairing thing again), and am especially looking forward to meeting Anisa Kamadoli Costa, another one of Tiffany & Co.'s sparkles. 

Anisa Kamadoli Costa is Chair and President of The Tiffany & Co. Foundation and Vice President of Global Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility at Tiffany & Co. Anisa leads the global corporate responsibility and sustainability function at Tiffany & Co. and manages the annual philanthropic giving portfolio of $6 million of the Tiffany & Co. Foundation. Prior to joining Tiffany & Co., Anisa worked at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Anisa serves as Chair of the Board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, a group composed of more than 220 foundations from the U.S., Canada and Europe representing over $1 billion in environmental grantmaking.

I asked Anisa a few questions in the run-up to the Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference. She was very generous with her time and open in her replies. Read on.

Tell us about your professional background and how you came to be Vice President-Global Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility at Tiffany & Co. What specific experience prepared you for this role?

When I joined Tiffany & Co. 10 years ago, I came to the Company with a multi-disciplinary background, which has certainly fit into the global nature of our sustainability work. Factoring global perspectives into sustainability is critical to our efforts at Tiffany & Co. My graduate degree is in international affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and I have worked in both finance and private philanthropy. Through my dual role overseeing sustainability and philanthropy for Tiffany & Co., we have strategically aligned our philanthropic giving with our Company’s sustainability efforts. Strategic philanthropy is a key pillar of Tiffany & Co.’s sustainability work, with a particular focus on responsible mining and coral and marine conservation.

How is your CSR team composed?

Sustainability has always been a part of Tiffany & Co. and is central to how we operate as a luxury brand. Our commitment to sustainability was formalized in 2009 with the establishment of the CSR Committee of the Board of Directors as well as my department. I report directly to Michael Kowalski, Chairman & CEO of Tiffany & Co., who is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the environmental issues that the Company addresses, such as responsible mining. The fact that our team has such strong senior-level support allows us to collaborate closely with internal and external stakeholders and to continue to lead our industry.

How involved is the Board CSR Committee in your work? Do you find this to be helpful? 

The CSR Committee – and in fact the entire Board of Directors – is committed to sustainability and continues to demonstrate that it is a business priority for the Company. This high level leadership emphasizes the importance of sustainability to our business. It is not just the right thing to do, but a smart business decision that I believe improves the long-term strength of our company and our industry.

What are current your priorities in role? And looking toward the next few years?

For many years, the focus of Tiffany & Co.’s sustainability work has been on responsible mining and the responsible sourcing of our raw materials, ranging from diamonds and gold to the paper in our iconic Blue Boxes and bags. Responsible Sourcing continues to be a key priority for us moving forward. There are two timely mining issues that we are addressing, that will be crucial over the next year or so.

Tiffany & Co. is a founding member of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), which seeks to develop true third-party, multi-stakeholder standards for responsible mining. I have been involved in IRMA since 2006, and through this process we collaborate with representatives from industry, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), impacted communities, labor organizations and others, who are all equal participants in the development of the standards. IRMA’s draft standards will be released for public comment in 2014 and piloted in 2015. We value the role that true third-party processes play in raising the bar for our industry and believe in this process as critical to improving standards for responsible mining.

Because of our commitment to the preservation of the natural world, we are raising awareness of the risks associated with the development of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Bristol Bay is home to the world’s most productive salmon fishery, which would be devastated by one of the world’s largest open-pit gold and copper mines. We believe that Bristol Bay is a special place where mining cannot be done without forever destroying its wildlife, landscape, and community, and we have publicly declared that should the Pebble Mine be developed, we will not source gold from it. Additionally, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has authority under the Clean Water Act to block the mine, and they have conducted an assessment to evaluate the impact of large-scale mining on the watershed. The next year will be crucial in the protection of Bristol Bay.

Is there a conflict between luxury brands and CSR? Is this something that gets discussed at Tiffany & Co.?

I actually don’t see a conflict between luxury and CSR as it pertains to Tiffany & Co. As a luxury brand with a 177 year history, we believe that our customers put their trust in us to operate responsibly and to ensure that the jewelry we craft was created in an ethical and responsible way. We take that responsibility seriously and strive to live up to those expectations, ensuring that sustainability considerations are a part of our decision-making processes.

What's Tiffany & Co's record in responsible mining? Are you leaders or followers? Do you get many approaches from activists?

Under the leadership of Michael Kowalski, our Chairman and CEO, Tiffany & Co. has placed a priority on responsible mining issues for nearly 20 years. We source the majority of our precious materials from mines we know, and have traceability and control throughout our supply chain. In addition, we have a long history of collaboration with the nonprofit sector and strongly value the role they play in improving mining standards around the world and representing civil society’s perspectives in these challenging issues.

Who do you expect to be the main audience for your report? How do you ensure that your report gets noticed?

We have a very robust sustainability website, which we use to communicate our sustainability initiatives to all of our stakeholders. We launched our sustainability report in 2011. It is a web-based report, allowing access to a variety of audiences such as our customers, employees, investors, NGOs, the academic community, government and our business partners. The website offers different levels of information so visitors with varying interests can find what they are looking for on the site. We are committed to using the Tiffany brand to increase awareness about the issues we care about, and our website is one tool for that.

Thanks to Anisa, and to Tiffany & Co. for an education in beneficiation.

I guess I will be seein' y'all in London in a few weeks, then, right?



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