GRI: SASB: The Sector Specificity Question

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's another report. Apache Corporation 2018 Sustainability Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should we count that as six frameworks?

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

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

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

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

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

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

And my three answers:

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

How's your hurdling?

In early November, I was treated to a tour of Sky Studios by Rachel Depree and Briana Inlow who lead stakeholder engagement and reporting for Sky’s approach to sustainability, Seeing the Bigger Picture. It was all very exciting. I went backstage and met the presenters (Di Dougherty and Darren Campbell) of the Sky Game Changer Series. They were preparing for the new edition with Olympic hurdler Perri Shakes-Drayton who was to share hurdling tips with the Game Changers young school-kid audience. While I didn't learn to hurdle (I am somewhat hurdlingly challenged) I was able to watch the program that aired on Sky Sports TV the following day. Sorry to say, I still can't hurdle... but lots of kids now can.

Click here to view

The fabulous thing about the Game Changer series is that it's not only changing games, it's changing the lives of thousands of young children. Now in its second year, the program invites schoolchildren from all over the UK to take part in a live show that airs every Saturday morning, targeted at kids between ages 8 and 12. Each show has a different sports-related theme and hosts sporting superstars or well-known sports personalities to inspire and help the kids discover or deepen their love of sports. Anyone can apply for a free ticket and take part in the fun. But it's more than fun. In our current sedentary, electronic-game, TV-screen, computerized, interactive, tablet-phablet-laptop-desktop digital world, the dangers of kids being glued to big screens and small screens for most of their spare time is quite a real one. Game Changers is helping to draw kids into the world of sports and off their armchairs - even watching the show on TV encourages active participation, alongside the hundred or so kids that attend the live show each week. This is a CSR initiative that brings value to the community in an area of genuine social need, while also providing Sky Sports with an attractive high-rating TV show as part of their programming. Sounds like a win for business and a win for society. For me, seeing the set and meeting the people in person also helped me get a sense of the passion and purpose behind the camera lens. 

While at Sky, I also had the opportunity to visit and talk with students who come to learn at Sky Academy Skills Studios. Sky Academy is a set of initiatives which use the power of television, creativity and sport to inspire young people and help them build skills and confidence. Sky Academy Skills Studios provide an interactive learning experience that takes schools behind the scenes at Sky. Students build life skills by using state-of-the-art technology to make a TV news report on subjects they’re studying at school. Over 30,000 young people aged 8 to 18 have visited Sky's Skills Studio in West London since it opened in 2012 - current rates of visits are around 1,000 per month. This is a fantastic way of using core business skills that are part of what Sky does every day as an opportunity for young people to develop skills like teamwork, communication and creativity, handle technology, and perhaps even find their vocation. The Studios are quite spectacular and offer an amazing experience for young people in a very real simulation setting. Talking in front of a camera is no easy feat... as I well know when I personally tried (and failed) to record a series of videos on sustainability. Building both the skill and the self-confidence to get your message through is a gift for life that the Skills Studios offer to thousands of young people.

Game Changers and Sky Academy Skills Studios are just a small part of Sky's overall approach, which they call Seeing the Bigger Picture. Take a look at Sky's most recent Seeing the Big Picture Summary Report for 2014. Sky's website provides a more comprehensive overview of their initiatives and performance data, as well as news articles and blogs posted throughout the year.

Seeing the Bigger Picture is integrated as part of Sky's business model and is based on three pillars: making a contribution, responsible business practices, and inspiring action in the community to improve quality of life.

As part of its reporting, Sky calculates is economic contribution to the UK economy and quotes a significant £6bn added to the economy and creation of 117,000 direct jobs. In addition, Sky is the biggest commercial supporter of the creative and sports industries in the UK, working with more than 150 production companies in the last 12 months, providing a platform for their creativity and helping them grow their own businesses with a £2.6 billion content and programming investment. 

In addition to economic impact, however, it is always interesting for me to consider the more core-business social impact of the programming and broadcasting choices that media companies make. I have tracked the work of the Media CSR Forum, of which Sky is a member, for some time now, and find the Mirrors or Movers publications - is the media a reflection or a transformer of society? - to be insightful and thought-provoking.

Here are some of the things that Rachel Depree, who heads up engagement and reporting initiatives at Sky, told me during my visit and our chat about Sky and its Bigger Picture journey:

"For Sky, we know reducing our environmental impacts and making sure families can stay safe online are what our customers expect of us day to day. They’re simply doing the right thing as a business. The real opportunity for Sky is the ability we have to inspire people to take action through our presence in over 40% of UK and Irish homes. We’re really proud of Sky Academy, which builds on our strengths in TV, sport and the arts to help young people unlock their potential. The stories of those who’ve taken part are inspiring. Our challenge is to keep making sure we capture the value this is creating for Sky and for wider society. We’d love for people to take a look at our reporting and tell us what they think. Alternatively, they could tune in to Game Changers on Sky 1, Saturday mornings, and practice their hurdling!"

Thanks to Rachel and Briana for hosting me for an enlightening and energizing visit. Just one more thing to love about working in sustainability. Now, remind me where I put those hurdling fences......

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. 

Liberty Global: Discovering New Possibilities

It's always a pleasure to tell CSR Reporting blog readers about reports that I have been involved with. Last year, I posted about Liberty Global's inaugural Corporate Responsibility Report  and now, I am delighted to bring you an update in the form of the second global report, called Discovering New Possibilities, which was published last week.

 

This report represents a step up in transparency for Liberty Global with a GRI G3.1 report at Application Level B, more extensive than the first C Level report, and covers operations in including UPC (Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary), Unitymedia Kabel BW (Germany), Telenet (Belgium), VTR (Chile) and Liberty Cablevision Puerto Rico.

 

A lot can change in a single year, which is reflected in this new report from Liberty Global. The company is now the largest international cable company in the world, following the acquisition of Virgin Media in June 2013, and expansion of presence in different markets, generating a whole lot of economic and social value with revenues of over $17 billion and employing over 36,000 employees. With 24 million customers and over 48 million subscribers to video, internet and voice services, Liberty Global maintains an operation which is transforming access to the digital world - a transformation which is relevant to the quality of life of millions of people in the markets in which the company operates. Liberty Global's approach to delivering this transformation is routed in a compelling vision of the role that Liberty Global can play in society. It's much more than selling modems or set-top-boxes. It's about changing the way people live their lives. It's not enough to connect. It's about knowing what to do with that connection. In the language of Liberty Global, this means Discovering New Possibilities.

 

 

Possibilities for New Digital Skills

The Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) recognizes that access to next-generation broadband with speeds exceeding 100 Mbps (megabytes per second) by 2020 is vital for long-term economic development and competitiveness. The goals of the DAE range from fast broadband for all to increased online commerce to 60% of disadvantaged people using the internet regularly. This is because digital technologies have "enormous potential" to benefit our everyday lives and support the economic wellbeing of Europe, as well as contribute to environmental resource efficiency. Liberty Global, as a seriously large player, recognizes that continually improving technology is not going to do the job. The technology needs to go where it's needed and people need to understand how to use it for their own benefit and for that of others. For example, in Belgium, Liberty Global's company, Telenet, installed 450 multimedia monitors in patient rooms at a hospital, providing video conference capabilities for patients and secure access to patients’ medical information for use by hospital staff, helping to increase the efficiency of staff while providing patients with opportunities to engage with their families and friends. Also in Belgium, Telenet Foundation developed an award-winning program called Recup PC, which helps people to get online, understand how to use the technology and develop digital literacy.

 

Possibilities of Buttons

Another great example of helping people not only to be aware of new technology but also to increase their capabilities is Liberty Global's innovative web tool called Internet Buttons. This enables people who have some experience in using the internet to create easy-to-use customized starter page for family members and friends who are new to the internet or find it confusing. Large, brightly colored ‘buttons’ act as shortcuts to websites such as email, search engines, Skype, eHealth or other services tailored to the user. These can be saved to a personal homepage, easily accessible at the click of a button and a whole lot less confusing than a bunch of unrecognizable icons and symbols that only experienced users can navigate around. New digital skills – button-wise – is a way to bring the internet to those who otherwise would probably never be able to figure it out on their own. Like most things, it's easy when you know how. But if no-one helps you, you never know how.

 

 

 

Possibilities of Engaging Children in Innovation

In Romania, Liberty Global company UPC has developed a platform to get kids interested in technology involved by submitting ideas with the possibility of winning a trip to attend a NASA educational summer camp. Over 230,000 visits to the Tech School website and 570 ideas later, the winning ideas included a super bionic hand, a mobile-phone-charging-T-shirt and a mobile astronomy observatory, showing that, when you provide the tools, kids get engaged and discover new possibilities. The overall winner of Tech School 2012 developed a prototype of a bionic hand with enhanced control and strength, which has wide-ranging implications for surgery, telemedicine and other remote interventions. A UPC Tech School grant will help develop an advanced version of this prototype.

 

 

Possibilities of Keeping Kids Safe Online 

Another area in which this report demonstrates the impact and potential positive impact of a company as large and influential as Liberty Global is the ways in which it advances technology, awareness and education to protect kids online. As a mom who has had personal experience of my own child getting into a potentially very dangerous online situation, which I managed to catch in the nick of time, and with kids who are mesmerized by the big, medium and small screens, I am only too aware of the need to protect our children. Liberty Global's report discusses this in detail and provides examples of how the company is supporting media literacy for parents in the Netherlands, campaigning to keep passwords safe in Chile and working in partnership in Europe to create safe internet experiences. The focus of protecting children is on education and empowerment.

 

 

Corporate Responsibility Performance

The nice thing about Liberty Global's report is that stories such as these show how positive impact is created through Liberty Global's core business. This is not a report about switching off lights at the end of the day and retrofitting offices with low-flow toilets (although there is some of that too). The main content of Liberty Global's report is about the role that the Company plays in society, which includes significant discussion about public policy and the complexities of creating internationally aligned protocols for data privacy and more. Liberty Global is active in helping define and shape the future of our digital world, which makes this report quite relevant for almost everyone.

 

Liberty Global's report also covers areas of responsible performance in environmental impacts, people management, supply chain monitoring and management and other relevant issues which affect the sector such as conflict minerals and an important discussion about e-waste, one of the sector's most significant impact areas. Liberty Global achieves a 36% retrieval and recycling rate of set-top boxes and modems, which adds up to over 5,000 tons of e-waste which avoids landfill. That’s equivalent in weight to offering 10,000 people an annual supply of ice cream every year for over 25 years. Unless you are me, in which case an annual supply would last about two days.

 

Take a Look – Give Feedback – Think Future G4

The transition from first reporter to experienced reporter is not easy. Liberty Global has delivered an equally relevant and more transparent report this year, which places the Company on the right road for a G4 report next time around. With this in mind, I encourage you to take a look, and give feedback!

 

 

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 big is your brain-print?

Yogesh Chauhan is Chairman of the Corporate Responsibility Group and BBC Chief Adviser Corporate Responsibility. He is slowly but surely transforming the CSR landscape at the BBC. We recently had the opportunity to chat about our expectations of the upcoming Smart Sustainability Reporting Conference on May 15th in London. Yogesh will be leading a session called: Moving towards the report of the future - creating engaging, dynamic and accessible content and distributing through segmented data sets. Sounds intriguing - the report of the future - segmented data sets - engaging, dynamic - not the sort of language most people currently associate with sustainability reports. Therefore, being rather a delayed-gratification-challenged person, I couldn't wait to ask him about what all this means. I found Yogesh very open and willing to share his views. But I am not going to tell you specifically about segmented data sets. You can hear more about that at the conference.

What I will share are some of the other things we talked about.

For example, how Yogesh sees his role: "The fundamental task I have is to challenge the organization in a positive and constructive way. I need to personally to be ahead of the game and identify what the challenges are likely to look like in the future." The BBC employs 23,000 people around the world, so this is no small undertaking.

For another example, how do you influence brain-print? Brain-print is to the media is what ice-cream-print is to Elaine (me), or what foot-print is to a corporation's environmental impacts. Brain-print is the sector jargon which refers to the impact of the media on the way people think. According to Yogesh, in terms of CSR, the "most substantive impact of  the media is its influence in how people make sense of the world around them and how they are informed by the media". The BBC approach, according to Yogesh, goes like this:

  

"What guide us are the BBC core editorial values – these are sacrosanct – they have been around much longer than I have and will stay around - impartiality, fairness and integrity are core to all that we do. We cannot afford to side with a particular viewpoint. The debate about climate change is very interesting and there is massive external scrutiny on how we report about climate change: some say the BBC is highly responsible in the way it reports, others say we are too cautious, other say we give too much time to the skeptics. But when you have critics on both sides, you tend to know that you have reported impartially and provided the right balance of content. "

The BBC's overall Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Program goes under the heading of Outreach, and includes the BBC's approach to journalism, promoting learning, education, creativity and cultural excellence, engaging with local communities, managing environmental sustainability, supporting charitable causes and maintaining a responsible workplace. When Yogesh Chauhan introduced Sustainability Reporting at the BBC some years ago, it was like "pushing an open door". The BBC acknowledged the role it needed to play as a Big Media Company. Since then, the BBC has been reporting, and experimenting with reporting.

Currently, the BBC produces an annual Corporate Responsibility Performance Report which  in 2011 was a mere 24 pages long, the center piece of which is the way the BBC upholds its Public Purposes. It's rather like a storybook, with accounts of how the BBC Outreach has advanced citizenship with the BBC News School Report project in which 11-14 year olds are encouraged to produce their own news reports and BBC Learning Works which maximizes learning content linked to BBC programmes. Other themes include promoting culture with the Proms Plus Intro series for families to get to know the experience of classical music and the BBC World Class project that helps schools in the UK develop a twinning partnership with schools around the world.

In addition, the BBC has started to publish quarterly newsletter supplements which provide a focused update on a specific aspect of CSR activities. The latest update, from January 2012, zooms in on Diversity at the BBC in all of its facets, providing an in-depth look the BBC workforce, procurement activities and community outreach and supplemented by a BBC Diversity website. This reflects the experimental aspect of reporting for the BBC - drilling down holistically and more comprehensively than in a single Sustainability Report which covers all issues, four times a year. This reflects a desire of the BBC to experiment with different ways of reporting and viewing the reporting process as one of evolution rather than a static one-model template. In many ways, it's the best of both worlds- a full annual report with more frequent subject-specific updates to keep stakeholders interested and engaged. It also perhaps reflects the view of the BBC that the GRI framework (which the BBC reporting does not formally align with, though the BBC is supporting the development of the Media Sector Supplement) is more of a procedural approach to reporting, which is rather different from the way the BBC (and Yogesh) want to use the report, which is to generate interest, not just information.

Yogesh made the point,  that as a publicly-funded broadcaster, the BBC has an absolute commitment to disclosure. "The BBC is subject to freedom of information legislation. Anyone can ask us any question about how we run our business. We reveal everything - salaries, travel expenses, Board meeting minutes – there is lots of information available. Above and beyond our Sustainability Reporting, every single response we have ever given is available on the website. We get the most wonderful and weird questions thrown at us. Therefore, as an organization we are probably one of the most transparent. The challenge for us is not what to put in the public domain but how we present in a digestible form – what, if anything, to leave out rather than how much to put in."

By the way, the BBC participates in the MediaCSR Forum, which I discovered while browsing the BBC CSR site. If you haven't seen it - take a look. It's a wealth of information about what's happening in the Media and CSR, and why.

I am looking forward to hearing more from Yogesh on 15th May. Hope you will stop by.

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  (Beyond Business, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)