The Enlightenment According to the Big Four. Not.

I wish I were an accountant. Clearly, I'd have so much time on my hands that all I would do is prepare new frameworks for sustainability metrics. I would spend my mornings dreaming up some new framework that looks just enough different from what's already out there to make it Big News, and spend my afternoons convincing everybody why it solves all their problems. Then I would make a ton of money when people are so bewildered and confused that they adopt my framework and ask me to check it over.

This was my first reaction to the new WEF publication: Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation which can't have helped escape your attention if you are on the sustainability circuit. (OK, I don't really wish I were an accountant. I don't think I could handle all the accountant jokes.) 

I can't tell you how many clients and colleagues have asked me what I think about the WEF metrics framework, meaning, is it good or is it bad? GRI has published a diplomatic response saying they "cautiously welcome" this approach but that it doesn't go far enough. Prof. Carol Adams has also weighed in: "Once upon a time there was a glimmer of hope that accountants could save the planet. The motivation for this report is unclear and expressed differently in different parts. But it is not going to save the planet and could well do more harm than good."  And no less a scathing reaction from Carlos Tornero at Responsible Investor: "As for reforming capitalism, I’m afraid the Big Four are not the best ambassadors for that."

For those who haven't yet studied the WEF paper, here's 96 pages distilled (followed by my commentary):

The proposal was developed as part of the WEF's International Business Council (IBC) and led by the Bank of America, who chairs the IBC, and the Big Four accounting firms: Deloitte, EY, PwC and KPMG. The IBC is a community of CEOs of around 140 companies, as far as I can gather, but I cannot find a list of the specific companies that are members of this group. 

The objective of developing this disclosure framework was "to identify a set of universal, material ESG metrics and recommended disclosures that could be reflected in the mainstream annual reports of companies on a consistent basis across industry sectors and countries. The metrics should be capable of verification and assurance, to enhance transparency and alignment among corporations, investors and all stakeholders."  

The hope is to encourage "IBC companies to begin reporting collectively on this basis in an effort to encourage greater cooperation and alignment among existing standards as well as to catalyse progress towards a systemic solution, such as a generally accepted international accounting standard in this respect."

And an important point: "This effort is not intended to diminish the value of the separate sustainability/ESG/impact reports, which often provide more comprehensive information at the industry- and company-specific levels, tailored to the interests of stakeholders beyond investors."

The proposed metrics are intended to be universal, industry agnostic ESG metrics/disclosures. There are two types:

Core Metrics: 21 metrics and reporting requirements. "These are primarily quantitative metrics for which information is already being reported by many firms (albeit often in different formats) or can be obtained with reasonable effort. They focus primarily on activities within an organization’s own boundaries." 

Expanded metrics: 34 metrics. "The expanded metrics and disclosures encourage companies to move from reporting outputs alone to capturing the impacts of their operations on nature and society across the full value chain, in more tangible, sophisticated ways, including the monetary value of impacts. These tend to be less well established in existing practice and standards...They represent a more advanced way of measuring and communicating sustainable value creation, and companies are encouraged to report against them as well, when material and appropriate."

Below is an overview of the metrics (reproduced from IAS PLUS )

Governance Core Metrics include: Company purpose statement, governance overview, material topics, anti-corruption, ethical reporting mechanisms and risk management. 

Expanded metrics include: 

• How the company’s stated purpose is embedded in company strategies, policies and goals
• Disclosure of the material strategic economic, environmental and social milestones
• How performance criteria in the remuneration policies relate to the highest governance body’s and senior executives’ objectives for economic, environmental and social topic and details of Board and executive remuneration
• The significant issues that are the focus of the company’s participation in public policy development and lobbying
• Total amount of monetary losses as a result of legal proceedings associated with fraud, insider trading, anti-trust, anti-competitive behavior, market manipulation, malpractice or violations of other related industry laws or regulations
• How the highest governance body considers economic, environmental and social issues when overseeing major capital allocation decisions, such as expenditures, acquisitions and divestments

Planet Core Metrics include: GHG emissions, TCFD implementation, land use, water consumption in water stressed areas.

Expanded metrics include:

• Paris-aligned GHG emissions targets  (science-based)
• Impact of GHG emissions - the estimate of the societal cost of carbon used
• Land use and ecological sensitivity 
• Impact of land use and conversion 
• Impact of freshwater consumption and withdrawal
• Air pollution and impact of air pollution 
• Water pollution and impact of water pollution
• Single-use plastics 
• Impact of solid waste disposal
• Resource circularity - potential metrics include (but are not limited to) the Circular Transition Indicators (WBCSD), indicators developed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and company developed metrics.

People Core Metrics include: Diversity and inclusion, pay equality, pay levels, risks of child, forced and compulsory labor, health and safety, training

Expanded metrics include:

• Mean pay gap of basic salary and remuneration of full-time relevant employees based on gender (women to men) and indicators of diversity (e.g. BAME to non-BAME) at a company level or by significant location of operation
• Ratio of the annual total compensation for the organization’s highest-paid individual in each country of significant operations to the median annual total compensation for all employees
• Discrimination and harassment incidents (#) and the total amount of monetary losses ($)
• Freedom of association and collective bargaining at risk (%) 
• Human rights review, grievance impact & modern slavery (#, %)  - total number and percentage of operations that have been subject to human rights reviews or human rights impact assessments, by country.
• Living wage (%) - current wages against the living wage for employees and contractors in states and localities where the company is operating. 
• Monetized impacts of work-related incidents on organization (#, $) 
• Employee well-being (#, %) - the number of fatalities as a result of work-related ill-health, recordable work-related ill-health injuries, and the main types of work-related ill-health for all employees and workers, and percentage of employees participating in “best practice” health and well-being programmes, and Absentee rate (AR) of all employees.
• Number of unfilled skilled positions (#, %) 
• Monetized impacts of training – increased earning capacity as a result of training intervention (%, $) - investment in training as a percentage (%) of payroll and effectiveness of the training and development through increased revenue, productivity gains, employee engagement and/or internal hire rates

Prosperity Core Metrics include: Employment, economic contribution, financial investments, R&D expenditure, tax payments 

Expanded metrics include:

• Infrastructure investments and services supported 
• Significant indirect economic impacts - examples of significant identified indirect economic impacts of the organization, including positive and negative impacts.
• Social value generated (%)  - percentage of revenue from products and services designed to deliver specific social benefits or to address specific sustainability challenges
• Vitality Index  - percentage of gross revenue from product lines added in last three (or five) years calculated as the sales from products that have been launched in the past three (or five) years divided by total sales, supported by narrative that describes how the company innovates to address specific sustainability challenges.
• Total Social Investment ($) -  Total Social Investment (TSI) sums up a company’s resources used for “S” in ESG efforts defined by CECP Valuation Guidance.
• Additional tax remitted - total additional global tax collected by the company on behalf of other taxpayers, including VAT and employee-related taxes that are remitted by the company on behalf of customers or employees, by category of taxes
• Total tax paid by country for significant locations

********

So, take a deep breath, and let's summarize: 

First, the accountants have decided (with input via a survey from some of the IBC companies) what represents a set of universal core metrics that every company should report on - whatever their shape or size. These metrics reflect largely DIRECT IMPACTS which each company can measure, control, and improve. 

Second, the framework offers an additional set of metrics that represent mainly INDIRECT IMPACTS - the ways in which the company impacts the world through its value chain. 

Third, it uses metrics that largely already exist in different frameworks.. a pick'n'mix from well known and lesser known frameworks, heavily leaning on GRI and to a lesser extent on SASB. Interestingly, although CDP is cited, none of the metrics are directly taken from the CDP questionnaires. 

Fourth, it incorporates some new concepts such as living wage (not new but not covered by existing frameworks), inclusion of corporate purpose (the new sexy), "vitality index" (heard of that one?), WCBSD Circular Transition Indicators, monetized impacts of training and others.  Two new metrics have been invented - one for single use plastics and one for land use.

What do I think?

Although the WEF metrics-team may have tried not to reinvent the wheel, they have actually reinvented the bicycle. The proposal moves away from the GRI approach of materiality by applying a common measurement system to all companies at a fundamental level - the things any company anywhere should be taking into account in the management of its own operations. The second set of (expanded) metrics also ignores the materiality approach and prescribes a range of measurements reflecting what the WEF team feel are the most relevant universal social and environmental issues - linking their selection to SDGs. After companies have done all of this, they have the option of applying a materiality lens and adding whatever crumbs are relevant for their "other" stakeholders, i.e. not investors.  

Actually, this approach has some elements of something I have been advocating for years - see my post from 2017: Materiality - from meaningless to differentiating  in which I wrote:

• There should be a harmonized standard baseline of disclosures that are relevant to all companies - some will be more critical than others for different companies - but they are relevant - and material - for all. I call this Operational Materiality. 
• Then we should have materiality that is precise enough to differentiate - focusing on the specific aspects of a company's impacts that are a directly relevant to its business, the locations it operates in and the influence it has on society. Let's call that Precision Materiality. 

The WEF metrics partly go this route. WEF Core Metrics represent operational ESG performance. Expanded Metrics represent  broader impacts - but remain any industry, and not specifically relative to what might be considered material for a specific company. 

So back to the question, is it good or is it bad? 

Coming just on the heels of the "standard setters' " proud declaration of how well they all fit in with each other and that no-one needs to be confused any more (and that's another (long) story 😜), here is yet another framework for ESG disclosure. I have to say that I rolled my eyes so hard that they almost stuck to my skull when I read the Press Release: “This is a unique moment in history to walk the talk and to make stakeholder capitalism measurable,” says Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum. “Having companies accepting, not only to measure but also to report on, their environmental and social responsibility will represent a sea change in economic history.”  Seriously? A unique moment in history? A sea change? Excuse me... with all due respect, where has Mr Schwab been for the past 25 years? This is not a unique moment, it's one of hundreds and hundreds (arguably regrettably) similar moments that have occurred in the past several years, with the publication of every new sustainability disclosure framework, and having companies report on their environmental and social responsibility is actually current practice for most of the large companies in the world - there may be inconsistencies, there may be gaps, but it is happening, and it has consistently been getting better. 

I also had a bit of a laugh at the visual in the WEF report's final section... rainbows galore!

The conclusion is also a Call to Action to IBC members. "Given the urgency of this agenda, we invite all IBC members to declare their intention to report on these metrics and disclosures; collectively, we will present a timeline for that process at the IBC’s Winter Meeting in January 2021. Finally, we encourage the wider corporate community to join us in this collective endeavour." Watch this space, apparently. But you have time for a quick nap before January 2021.

My answer to the question, then, is that the wheels are good but the bicycle is bad.  

I'll explain.

I agree with the concept of having a set of metrics that are relevant for all companies, as I have said. And the core metrics are a reasonable selection (with some exceptions - see below). BUT, why on earth did the accountants think they needed to create yet another framework? As I have said several times, we do not need new frameworks, we need consistent implementation of existing frameworks. Take materiality as a case in point. Everyone is now swooning over the new concept of dynamic materiality - which in my view is a poor compromise to enable everyone to have a seat at the table without resolving underlying issues of how materiality is determined. Instead of creating yet another way to describe what materiality is, why has no-one one come up with a fool-proof comparable auditable methodology to help companies determine what represents material impacts from a sustainability standpoint? The new iteration of the GRI Standards, that has recently been in Exposure Draft did not do this, and GRI has never done this. "GRI is the disclosure tool, we do not prescribe the methodology" said GRI. But heck, if your entire disclosure concept is based on materiality, why wouldn't you offer a methodology for how to create it?  And this, in my view, has been the single biggest gap in sustainability reporting standards to date, and is the reason that so many other standards have sprung up. By asking companies to disclose material topics, without understanding or being able to reasonably audit what those material impacts are, comparability and rigor in sustainability disclosure were effectively destroyed. SASB stepped in and said, hey, we can do it. And they spent millions of hours and dollars creating sets of prescriptive metrics for different sectors, but even that doesn't do the job, as companies still select from SASB metrics based on their own, possibly arbitrary, definition of material topics. 

Back to square one. Cue the accountants. Forget materiality. Everyone should be accountable for certain things in the same way. Let's cut and paste from as many existing frameworks as we can find, and call it The Enlightenment. So I think that's bad. I think it's a perpetuation of all that's wrong in the current sustainability disclosure landscape where every player is focused more on differentiating their own approach than on taking the higher view of how we can work together and build on what is and agree to make real change for the greater good. The WEFers may have pick'n'mixed from GRI, SASB, and all the rest. So what. The bicycle is new. Companies will have to learn how to ride it. Just when they were getting used to riding their current model. All we need now is for Larry Fink to send a letter to all the CEOs of companies in Blackrock's portfolio saying they must report disclose using SASB, TCFD AND the WEF metrics. Won't that be fun? So much for alignment, harmonization, simplification. 

And as for the core metrics, well, they are almost all based on GRI General or Topic-specific Disclosures. Why just not direct IBC members to report those GRI metrics? What was the point of creating an entirely new framework that just recycles the current best practice? Also, why some metrics were selected and others omitted is not so clear. Waste, for example, is not included in the Planet Core Metrics. But I would have thought that waste is absolutely core for most companies. And some metrics are rather useless. For example, in the People category, under "Skills for the Future", the metrics are average number of training hours and training expenditure. This is so old school. The number of training hours or the amount you spend on training is hardly an indicator of whether you are building skills for the future. In any event, many companies are moving away from formal traditional training programs in favor of other types of personal and professional development, so training hours is becoming an increasingly incomplete measure. So, by picking and mixing, the accountants may have come up with a set of core metrics that are comparable and auditable up to a point, but, frankly, what's the value add here? Not much.

And what are metrics? Hint: Only a part of the story of a company's impacts and overall role in society. The context, the journey, the strategy, the targets, the process, the culture, the examples of practice, the insight, the accountability, the people  .... all these are important in sustainability disclosure. This framework is an accounting tick-box by accountants for accountants. Something that makes sense to them because it can be quantified, stuck into categories, computed and converted into theoretical evaluations and risk assessments that may help investors know how rich they can get. Is this what sustainable development has become? A set of monetizable compartmentalized scores? This may be the story of sustainability disclosure promoting itself into obsolescence. Precisely because sustainability has been so successfully (yes, not perfectly) addressed and disclosed over the years, the money markets woke up. Now, they are trying to reframe it in ways that fit with what they know. Like the country farmer who visited the Empire State Building and asked: how many sheep does it hold? Well, not everything that glitters is gold and not everything that's a number is meaningful. 

 

My assessment is that the WEF framework will not go mainstream as such, beyond the IBC members, if they even bother to apply it, even though the accountants will hype it. Companies that already disclose GRI, SASB, CDP and TCFD may well find themselves hitting many of the WEF metrics in any case, so they will sort of deliver the WEF indicators by default. If Larry Fink suddenly decides that this is the new Holy Grail, then he can probably get it without companies adding too much in the way of new disclosures. Some eager-beavers may start including a WEF index alongside all their other indices that support their reporting. What's another download, anyway? And let's not get started on the competitive scramble around Core and Expanded....can't you just see the Press Releases? "XXX company demonstrates global leadership in radical transparency in its new Sustainability / Annual Report by meeting all the requirements of the Expanded Metrics of the WEF ESG disclosure framework." Wowee.

  

If only the humanity could be saved by the proliferation of reporting frameworks…. 😂🤣😂 … we would all be able to spend more time trying out new ice cream flavors and enjoying days on the beach, wearing an "SDG Been There Done That" T-shirt.

Note: October 2, 2020: This post originally stated in error that there were 22 core indicators - there are 21. This has been corrected.

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 107 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

 

In the hot seat at GRI with Tim Mohin

After nine months at the helm of GRI, Tim Mohin is still, yes, still, enjoying his job and making waves in sustainability circles. An eternal optimist endowed with just about enough realism and an unshakeable vision of a future of sustainable development powered by corporate accountability and transparency, Tim has a lot to say. GRI is also 20 years old young, and though Tim Mohin has been leading it for a much shorter time, his experience as a practitioner and sustainability leader gives him the long perspective. 

What prompted me to pound Tim with a barrage of tough questions was an interview with Bob Eccles published in Forbes a couple of months back.  Tim is quoted as saying: "There is a narrative that has been running for a while now that portrays sustainability reporting organizations as in conflict with each other. The reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. I believe there is an increasing amount of harmonization in this space, whether it be GRI, or the UN Global Compact, SASB or the IIRC. Not only do we have longstanding partnerships with those organizations and others, but we are in fact all just after the same thing, which is sustainable development." 

I beg to differ. I do not see harmonization between any of these organizations and there are new frameworks and reporting approaches popping up all the time, whether in relation to specific sectors, regulation, stock exchange listings or other independent initiatives. Investment analysts use their own proprietary methodologies that are not based wholly on one framework or another. Longstanding partnerships with organizations in this space may look nice on paper, but in practice, they have yielded very little in terms of simplifying the way companies report. I am sure it sounds nice to talk of harmonization and partnership, but the reality is that it is not yet yielding tangible benefits. The proliferation of Linkage Documents that enable some sort of correlation between GRI Standards and other frameworks further clutters the landscape. 

One case in point is GRI's close collaboration with the UN Global Compact. Both organizations have been in dialogue forever and have signed more MOUs than Nobel has given out prizes. And yet, signatories to the UN Global Compact are still required to prepare a Communication on Progress in line with UNGC requirements at Advanced, Active or Learner level. In fact, the UNGC is very proud of its flagship reporting framework - as noted on its website. 

There is a 31 page document making the connection between GRI G4 Guidelines and the UNCG COP(s). This states clearly that reporters using GRI must still include content relating to UNGC core elements, even if those have not been deemed material for the organization and therefore not required by GRI Standards. Frankly, just reading this linkage document made me crave for paracetamol-flavored ice cream. If there were a true spirit of harmonization, I would expect the UNGC to declare the demise of the COP and require all large company signatories to deliver GRI-based in accordance reports and all SMEs to deliver reports covering a subset of GRI indicators. The perpetuation of different frameworks compounded by the need to understand the link between them is about as useful as an iPhone at a mindfulness retreat. There are many examples where unnecessary duplication of requirements adds nothing to sustainable development. It adds only bureaucracy, budget and salaries for people charged with promoting different frameworks. 

I asked Tim to explain his thinking about the positive extent of harmonization. 

"I am coming from twenty years of practitioner experience. I can say that a fractured landscape has created confusion and burden for corporations and we have to pay attention to that. We have to look at how to dig a layer deeper and appreciate that there are different tools for different uses. It is not a reason for companies to become confused. There is real harmonization work going on. When I say harmonization, I am talking about when standard-setters are asking the same question in annoyingly different ways. Right now, we have an aspiration to work with SASB to align such questions. There are over two thousand different disclosure standards out there. Currently we are in Phase One, mapping the overlap and looking at where we can align and simplify. This is work we are trying to get funded. I am certainly seeing a change in collaborative spirit at SASB. When I first got this job, I went on a listening tour. When I got to SASB, it felt like we were competitors. I took the opportunity to appeal to a shared aspiration which is our end-goal to improve how information is used to advance sustainable development. That's the reason I took this job."

And the new thinking on the Sustainable Development Goals? 

"My view is that work in industry sectors and work on the Sustainable Development Goals can merge together. When you look at a sector and what's material for that sector, and then overlay the SDGs, you can see there is a good degree of correlation. I am very keen to merge those streams of work."   

What about the work GRI is undertaking to advance reporting by SMEs? 

"I took a trip through Asia this summer and one of the things I noted was the explosion in stock market listing requirements. Many of the listed companies in that region are SMEs, and they are starting to come to us for help. This is a major driver of the expansion of SME reporting. We have been working with one of our major funders in a program to drive sustainability reporting through the supply chain. When large companies use their buying power, you can bring a lot of SMEs into the fold, so it's a program to bring buyer and supplier together. First, they define the material issues they really want from the SME. A digital tool has been developed to help them use the GRI Standards so that it is more simple, straightforward and requires fewer resources. We are conducting training in developing countries (Colombia, Ghana, Indonesia, Peru, South Africa and Vietnam) where we have funding and there are more to come. The pilot program has a two-year time-frame before we can roll it out globally. We are excited about this and it clearly shows the difference that GRI brings - we are trying to affect the entire global economy by harnessing the forces of capitalism in the service of sustainable development." 

How would you summarize your thinking after nine months at GRI?

"I have never been happier. This is certainly one of the highlights of my career. It's a fantastic cause and a fantastic organization. My only frustration is that there are so many ideas and possibilities, more than we can act upon at any given time. I have had to prioritize and manage expectations and focus but it's working out quite well. Running a not-for-profit is like running a business - we now have nearly 100 people around the world." 

And the focus is? 

"We have four key areas that we are prioritizing at present and we have reorganized our structure to meet the needs. (1) improving the quality of sustainability reporting (2) providing preliminary reporting guidance on sustainability topics that are new to the corporate reporting field (3) increasing reporting among small and medium-sized enterprises (4) promoting harmonization in the corporate reporting landscape. We are actively working in all these areas."

Do think there is still an issue connecting reporting practice to actual sustainable development?

"There is more work to do in this area. We have gotten some funding recently to work with the investor community to define what is investor grade reporting and how GRI can make that happen. It's a big hill we have to climb."

And the next GRI Global Conference?

"Ah yes, we'll be making an announcement on that soon. Watch this space!"

So, lots of things bubbling at GRI, including the tarmac on the Road to Harmonization. Tim Mohin is very consistent and clear in his purpose and intentions - to advance sustainable development and improve the value of reporting as a tool to help us all do that. In the meantime, defragging and optimizing the reporting framework hard drives continues to be somewhat of an elusive goal.

And if all that is not enough for you, you can check out the recent GRI Podcast with Tim Mohin and hear him talk about GRI's 20th anniversary and other things reporting - including more on the subject of harmonization. 






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

Reportingmania in Singapore

There's definitely going to be a lot of talk about reporting in Singapore in September. This will be at an event I am totally looking forward to - except for the long-haul flights that I try to avoid - but in this case, it's worth it.

The Asia Sustainability Reporting Summit will bring together some of the leading experts in business, sustainability and reporting from the region as well as from the international scene. Take a look at the speaker page:

You'll notice I snuck in there at the end. I'll be moderating a few sessions over the couple of days, and also running a breakout session on Sustainability Reporting for Human Resources. 

It's not by chance that I will be taking part in this summit. Here's why I decided to help bring on the reportingmania in Singapore in 2017. 

• Organizer Rajesh Chhabara of CSR Works is a veteran gentleman professional of the reporting  landscape and I admire tremendously his advancement in and of the field. When Rajesh says I have to be there, I am there. 
• I heard there is great ice cream in Singapore.
• I'll be humbled to share a stage with two super sustainability professionals (and clients): Gwen Migita, Vice President Sustainability and Corporate Citizenship with Caesars Entertainment, coming in all the way from Las Vegas, and Uday Gupta, Managing Director, Mahindra Sanyo Special Steel from Mumbai. These are leaders who are passionate, knowledgeable and forward-thinking in their approach to sustainability and reporting. I'll be honored to introduce them to you in Singapore.
• Even a 10 hour flight has to come to an end sometime. I am prepared. I have a Power Bank.
• The Summit is a "brand-extension" of the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards (ASRA), now in their third year. (Submissions for ASRA2017 open until 24 November 2017). It is my pleasure and privilege to have been involved as a strategic partner and judge since the inception of the Awards and experience the amazing wealth and diversity of reporting in Asia. Each year so far, to be repeated again this year, I read and review ALL the sustainability reports entering the Awards, and contribute my scores and recommendations to the judging panel. For me, this is more than judging. It's a wonderful way to learn about current issues in the region, new approaches, and of course, experience some delightfully creative and innovative reports. During the summit, I expect to meet many of the reporters from different countries in Asia who have enlightened and educated me over the past couple of years. You can read about some of them in the brochure (I was the writer) Learn from Asia's Best which was published after the inaugural awards of 2015 to showcase how the winners won and what it takes to make the grade.

• We are super-fortunate in being able to welcome not one but two leaders of the reporting movement from the Global Reporting Initiative. Chair of GRI, an experienced business leader, Christy Wood, will give an opening address on The Future of Sustainability Reporting and GRI's South Asia Director, the accomplished Aditi Haldar, will talk to the potential of Asia's leadership in reporting. GRI's voice in the reporting landscape remains the most prominent and the most influential, and this is a great opportunity to hear perspectives from two top women in the organization.
• I heard there is great ice cream in Singapore.
• As always, there are many dilemmas and choices in any reporting journey. The main sessions of the event will focus on what's new across a range of topics that drive the way companies report - from global and regional influences, to investor expectations, regulatory drivers and of course, one of my absolute favorites, the quality of reporting. We'll have a chance to hear from leaders, engage with practitioners and learn from each other. I expect this to be an empowering event for all who attend. 
• I am looking forward to hearing from many other speakers and panelists over the two-day event. While I have called out just a few in this post, I will be writing more as the event approaches. It will be the first time that such summit focusing on reporting has been held in this region  - but, I expect, not the last.
• I heard there is great ice cream in Singapore. 

If you have any chance of joining us all in Singapore in September, please do. I'd love to see you there! You can register here.

Include promotional code BLOG17 at registration to enter a prize draw to join me and my guests at a special private event during the conference (details to be revealed to the lucky two winners). 😉

 

elaine cohen, CSR Consultant, Sustainability Reporter, former HR Professional, Trust Across America 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, 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 

Take time to code

Today, when you talk about coding, the younger among us immediately click to coding: "the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, troubleshooting and maintaining the source code of computer programs". But in the context of CSR and sustainability, we have a type of coding that is just a little different.

If you work for a large company, the chances are you have a Code of Conduct, a Code of Ethics, a Code of Commitment, a Code of Behavior or some sort of Code that frames the way the company behaves and expects its employees to align with. In addition, your company probably subscribes to one or more external codes or standards or frameworks that provide structure and even external validation of your company's activities in the field of corporate responsibility and sustainability. 

Did you ever stop to think just how many codes, standards and frameworks are actually out there? (Don't get me started, that's another conversation.) But yes, there are LOADS. And even more that. This was the case more than ten years ago and it's still the case at present. That's why, when Deborah Leipziger came along in 2003 and provided a comprehensive guide to the most relevant and useful codes, standards and frameworks in The Corporate Responsibility Code Book, it was an iconic piece of work that would be invaluable as companies started the process of navigating where to hang their hat as they develop a responsible business strategy, or understand what it is that makes one code or another more or less helpful or relevant. Recently the Corporate Responsibility Code Book celebrated the publication of its third edition.

Why does a competitor align with SA8000, for example, where another competitor prefers to use the ETI Base Code? What might we learn from the Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative, even if we are operating in a different sector? What are framework agreements and what role do they play in changing the way business gets done? Do the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights actually have any relevance for our company and why? Today, the third edition of The Corporate Responsibility Code Book is updated to include new initiatives such as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the Gender Equality Principles and updates to the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines, the OECD Guidelines for MNEs, Social Accountability 8000 and many others. Similarly, some initiatives which that have been overtaken by new frameworks and are therefore no longer relevant have been removed.

While it's probably only geeks like me who actually like to read a book like The Corporate Responsibility Code Book, it's usefulness for anyone working in this space cannot be underestimated. And because, as a geek, I find this so fascinating, I couldn't resist talking to Deborah Leipziger, the code guru, to hear a little more from behind the code scenes.

Deborah Leipziger advises companies, governments and UN agencies on corporate responsibility and sustainability. She has advised leading multinational companies on strategic and supply chain issues, as well as a wide range of CR initiatives, including the UN's Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative, the UN Environment Programme, the Human Rights Impact Assessment, and Social Accountability International. Ms Leipziger is a Senior Fellow in Social Innovation at the Lewis Institute at Babson, and has taught at the Bard MBA in Sustainability, at the Simmons School of Management, and at Hult International Business School. She is a co-author several books and has served as a member of several boards including the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investment for Aviva (UK), the Center for Ethics at Manhattanville College (USA) and the International Board of Ethos (Brazil). check out her website: here    

The Code Book is somewhat of an icon in sustainability and the general body of knowledge available. Who actually uses the Code Book and what's its value to them?

Deborah: The Code Book is used in many classrooms to teach about sustainability and CSR. I use it to teach my MBA students at Bard. I have heard from many professors that it makes for a very good syllabus and complete course materials. Many college libraries also purchase The Code Book. In addition, companies and law firms also purchase The Code Book for their libraries.

What makes for a good Code of Conduct? 

Deborah: The best standards and codes build upon the knowledge and value of normative and foundation standards, such as those developed by multilateral organizations like the International Labor Organization. A good code of conduct should be dynamic and flexible, while at the same time having staying power. Over the past 25 years, I have worked with many codes and standards. The best codes and guidelines are clear and concise and written with implementation in mind. Strong support from stakeholders is also essential.

In your introduction, you refer to a new emerging vocabulary as an essential part of fostering corporate responsibility. What are the key changes in vocabulary and why is it essential for us to adapt?

Deborah: A wonderful question! One of the most lasting contributions of codes and standards is their ability to create clear definitions in a complex field. Guidelines and codes have shaped a lexicon of terms around CSR and sustainability. For example, SA8000 lays out definitions of child labor and trafficking which are helpful for stakeholders and companies. These definitions provide companies with concrete parameters. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights uses the terms “irremediable” to define human rights abuses for which there is no remedy, such as a lost childhood spent in hard labor. There are abuses for which there is a remedy, such as providing back pay for wages which were withheld. A few years ago, I was asked to advise Aviva plc on a project they were working on with Forum for the Future to create scenarios for what a sustainable economy might look like in 2050. My reaction was that we do not yet have the vocabulary to imagine and create a sustainable economy in the coming decades. I tackle this in a book I co-wrote with a team at Babson: Creating Social Value: A Guide for Leaders and Change Makers, which came out in 2013. One of the paradigm shifts that I see is companies working to promote social value creation, which includes solving social problems while also creating financial value. Companies need to think beyond being compliant with laws and standards, and towards creating social value through social innovation.

Your last chapter talks about pathways to convergence with ISEAL as an example which brings NGOs together under a broad framework of shared principles. However, what's the evidence that any sort of convergence in the private sector is actually happening? It seems that the world of codes, frameworks, and standards is only becoming more complex.

Deborah: The ISEAL Alliance has brought coherence to a wide range of social and environmental certification systems, creating common frameworks. This has helped to bring credibility and efficiency to certification and labeling standards from organics to fair trade. At the same time, there are many new systems emerging many of which are complex. I think complexity and convergence can coexist.

Did you consider the standard of standards, the emerging GISR? Do you expect GISR to influence the way Codes are used? 

Deborah: I have been following the progress of the Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings (GISR) for many years. Allen White and I worked together when we were both in the Netherlands and he has been a speaker in my classes for many years, which has allowed me to follow the progress of the GISR first hand. I think the GISR will indeed have an impact on how codes and standards evolve. Perhaps it will be included in a future version of The Code Book.

What's your position on the frameworks used for inclusion in major stock exchange sustainability rankings for example DJSI?

Deborah: Many companies use DJSI as a framework to drive strategy and disclosure. I think the Dow Jones Sustainability Index is an excellent tool for companies. It helps drive performance and serves as a driver for companies to excel. I consider stock exchanges to be pivotal in driving change in the corporate sector. I hope to see more rankings like the DJSI emerge.

What was your personal biggest insight as you were preparing the third edition?

Deborah: I was struck by how much membership has grown for the guidelines and codes covered in Code Book III. When I first began tracking codes and standards, many of the initiatives had a dozen or so members. Now initiatives encompass broad networks of companies. I am also struck by how the field has evolved from aspirational initiatives to complex and brilliant initiatives like the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The Guiding Principles constitute a significant contribution to the field of corporate responsibility, defining the role of the state and of companies in addressing human rights and the need to provide access to remedy when human rights have been abused. The Guiding Principles provide a useful tool for companies working to complete due diligence and to assess where their operations, products, or services might have a potential adverse impact.

Will there be a Code Book IV? 

Deborah: It’s not in the works right now, but it is a possibility. There is a great deal of interest from emerging economies and Code Book III was launched in New Delhi.  

*******

Thanks to Deborah for these insights. Happy coding!


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  

10 Sustainability Insights from the Oil and Gas Industry

I have often said that business is done in sectors. A sector-based approach offers a platform for developing a shared appreciation of sustainability opportunities, risks, benefits and challenges while providing leverage for change and a support network for non-competitive knowledge sharing. Last month, I was delighted to engage with the Oil and Gas Industry for a day of working together all about sustainability reporting. I was able to share insights, recommendations and an external perspective while gaining a deeper understanding of the constraints and considerations that reporting specialists share in the large, complex, established companies in this industry, most of which have been reporting for years. For me, this was both an enriching experience and an opportunity to help. 

My reporting day was hosted as part of an annual meeting of members of IPIECA - the global oil and gas industry association for environmental and social issues. IPIECA was formed in 1974 following the launch of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). IPIECA is the only global association involving both the upstream and downstream oil and gas industry on environmental and social issues. IPIECA’s membership covers over half of the world’s oil production. 

The core of IPIECA's mission and practical agenda is the development of the sector as a social and environmentally responsible player. IPIECA's most recent publication a couple of months ago was the Third Edition of Sustainability Reporting Guidance for the Oil and Gas Industry to help companies report across the industry's most common sustainability issues in a consistent way and in line with shared stakeholder expectations.

The 180 page volume of guidance draws on several years of reporting experience in the sector and external independent stakeholder input. It covers both the reporting process (and principles) and reporting guidance including what's material for Oil and Gas. The principles are simply stated: relevance, transparency, consistency, completeness and accuracy.

The IPIECA guidance also suggests a set of the most significant issues commonly associated with the oil and gas industry, broadly referring to types of sustainability aspects, including risks, impacts and benefits, related to the life cycle and value chain of a company’s activities.

The IPIECA reporting guidance suggests a list of 34 performance indicators that are likely to be relevant to companies reporting in this sector. Fairly straightforward - 11 greenie ones, 5 health and safety, and 18 across workplace and community.  

But then... the reporting guidance makes a distinction between three types of reporting elements: the common ones... that means, essentially, there's no point in producing a report unless you include these; the supplemental ones, that means, basically, a good selection of your peers probably already report so you should consider including if you want to be at the top of the game and finally, others. Others is what differentiates you.

And here is an example I prepared earlier:

So E1 - greenhouse gas emissions - actually becomes 10 separate indicators, some of which are very specifically tailored to the oil and gas industry. Ultimately, it's not so different from the GRI approach, where performance indicators are grouped into categories and aspects. IPIECA has selected 34 aspects for its member reporters - GRI G4 as you may recall has 46 aspects. Many companies in this sector choose to report GRI as well as being guided by IPIECA, and a cross-reference of the different performance indicators in each framework is provided.

The IPIECA approach makes for a simple and straightforward content index - see this one in Chevron's 2014 report - it is somewhat less cumbersome than a full GRI Content Index as the sub-indicators - the different reporting elements - are not identified in the index.

I think it's a great thing that a sector proactively provides guidance and comprehensive tools for the member companies. It's more than just guidance - it's a demonstration of accountability for driving the sector forward with a shared expectation around sustainability practice and transparency. The value of the debate in developing the framework, the value of the learning in applying the reporting guidance and the value of reviewing the challenges of reporting are immense. That's how it seemed to me in my working day with many companies from the Oil and Gas industry, including sustainability reporting representatives of BG Group, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Hess Corporation, Marathon Oil, Noble Energy, OMV, Repsol, Shell, Statoil, Total and Tullow Oil.

In our workshop day, we discussed three aspects of reporting that are always fascinating:

• planning the reporting process
• defining and reporting materiality
• reporting climate change

And while I am not able to disclose the details of the discussions that took place throughout the day, I did receive permission to share a small selection of the closing insights that the 25 or so people in the room shared at the end of the day. 

10: Prioritizing material issues: Care needs to be taken when prioritizing material issues - it's not always as straightforward as it might seem. Overly mechanical formulas or highly detailed positioning of issues on a matrix may not be as valuable as the time invested. Not every material issue is more or less important than other issues. Sometimes they are the same. There also needs to be a balance in reporting to ensure that issues that are not identified as most material are not completely omitted as some stakeholders may require these.

9: Additional resources: You don't have to cram everything into your report. In some cases, supplementary content can be added as an appendix or a web-page. Not everything needs to be upfront narrative.

8: Less is more:  (ha ha, no further comment)

7: Tighten the timeline: In the oil and gas industry, companies are very large and complex and global data collection takes the time that it takes. Often this, together with other reporting considerations, can drag out the reporting timeline across several months - in a survey of IPIECA member companies before the workshop, we discovered that the average reporting cycle was more than 8 months. If you are reporting annually, this doesn't leave too much time to go to the beach. I am pretty clear on this. Any report that takes more than 6 months to prepare from concept to publication is taking too long. And that's generous. While there are often practical considerations that delay the publication of the report, the more you can compact the timeline, the more time you have for making progress rather than making reporting.

6: Give up the search for the perfect formula: This is so true. In preparation for my work with the sector, I reviewed 15 Oil and Gas Sustainability Reports from 2014. Despite the fact that all these companies are in the same industry, the reports all have their individual character, style, tone and content focus. Each company is at a different stage of development along the sustainability journey. So, while I was able to share insights on the different ways of defining, prioritizing and presenting material issues, and participants took away new ideas, one size does not fit all and there is absolutely no perfect reporting formula for all organizations, only one for each organization.

5: Balance the broad and the narrow: It's important to find a middle ground between reporting at a broad level about complex issues versus increasing the resolution to report at a more granular level on specific issues. How do you represent that your overall carbon footprint reduction is made up of a thousand small actions and impacts, and which of those, if any, are worth highlighting? This is something worth thinking about as you plan your report process and content.

4: Get the design right: Everyone would agree that content precedes design. If you don't have relevant content, even the best of designers will fail to make your report credible. Yet, getting the design right for your corporate culture and sustainability content can make the report come alive in ways that words alone cannot. Careful use of infographics, any photography other than stock photography and controlled use of colors, fonts and styles will only improve the appeal and readability of your report.

3: Stakeholders were not all born equal: Don't let individual stakeholder groups dominate your content and do map and prioritize your stakeholders in advance and decide what you need from them and how you will represent their voices in your report. Giving stakeholders a voice - letting them tell your story - is often a proven route to credibility.

2: Link materiality to metrics: How many reports, especially with the fuller adoption of G4, now include a materiality matrix or list of material impacts. Yes, most or all. How many create a clear linkage (I call this the "materiality audit trail") between what's stated as material and all the rest of the report content - performance indicators, case studies, policy narrative etc? Oops. Rather few. So often, there is a gaping dissonance between what the report says it should be about and what it actually includes. But getting this alignment is not enough. The report user should be able to easily and quickly find the link between material impact and reporting content about that impact. I generally apply the "ten-minute rule" - if I can't find something after ten minutes of trying, for me, it doesn't exist. We have to make the link between materiality, content and metrics both available and quick to locate.

1: Have confidence: It's tempting to get derailed in reporting - there are so many frameworks, guidelines and complex rules and requirements that you can spend forever questioning yourself on the right way to go and the best way to pull it all together. But this can lead to a spiral of indecision that can delay the report process and dilute the content. Often the best way is simply to make your selection of how to frame and develop your report, and then have confidence in your approach and make it happen. No-one knows what you might have done. Everyone sees what you do. Best feel good about it and present it with pride. There are no bad Sustainability Reports. There are only Sustainability Reports that can help us improve our sustainability performance and disclosure. Each report is a learning platform, but it's also an achievement to be proud of.


And one more insight from me:

Even though we didn't have ice cream throughout this day-long meeting :-), it was one of the best sustainability days I have had in a while: a dialogue with like-minded professionals who are eager to do their honest best for their company, society and planet. I didn't even miss the ice cream!

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  

Will GRI's new strategy work?

GRI has taken on a big role: "Empowering Sustainable Decisions." The new tagline of GRI's 2015-2020 strategy is rather broad brush. GRI is aiming to reach beyond the way organizations collate and report sustainability information to the place where the market actually thinks about what to do with the information that's ordered into neat performance indicators and creatively designed into sustainability reports. At first glance, this is a bit of a wishy-washy strategy, far less concrete and quantitative than we might have expected GRI to deliver, especially since other organizations in this space are driving forward in very measurable ways, pushing the uptake of reporting and disclosure in different forms, whether it be emissions, water or supply chain (CDP), 10-K or 20-F disclosures (SASB) or value creation (IIRC) and more. GRI, who has always been about driving the uptake of reporting, is now re-purposing itself to drive the uptake of using reporting. 

What pushed GRI in this direction? Clearly it has something to do with GRI's new leadership. Michael Meehan, who is just a couple of months short of completing one year at the helm of GRI. In my conversation with Michael earlier this week, he told me: " I come from the technology space. When I came to this market, some things were glaringly obvious. One was the lack of collaboration. In fact, there was more of an adversarial approach. Many organizations working in the same space but not getting along. It's understandable up to a point, there's competition for funding, resources, attention.  But this was not serving the market best. The corporate world and the policy world needs us to get along. There is going to continue to be fragmentation down the road, we are not going to stop seeing new frameworks, new approaches, new ways of working. What we have to do is change our frame of reference to help organizations and markets move forward more effectively in this context."

The new strategy has four pillars:

Enabling smart policy: More advocacy work and collaborative work with policy-makers, policy influencers and organizations around the world to embed sustainability-based factors into how things get decided and done.

More reporters, better reporting: The communicated elevation of GRI to "standard setter" and its continued uptake among the potential reporting community.

Moving beyond reports: New ways of using the report output as input, with a little help from technology, Big Data, integrated and accessible information flows.
Innovation and collaboration: Driving greater innovation in the area of sustainability disclosure and use of sustainability information.

These pillars build on the heritage of GRI as "the pioneer of the sustainability reporting process" and express an expansion of the scope of the role that GRI sees itself playing moving forward. But actually, it's more than expansion. It's more than "more of the same but different". It's different. It's a rebirth and it's as risky as it is bold. In essence, in plain language, I believe the GRI might be saying something like this: Hey folks, despite the fact that almost all we have ever talked about is reporting, we have now seen the light. Reporting is not the end-game. What you do with reporting outputs is the end-game. Now we have realized this, we are going to transform what people do with reporting outputs. This is an end to the era of asking who reads reports. This is a new era where we ask how can we use the reporting process and disclosures to make better decisions. We can help transform public policy, markets, and the way everyone makes decisions. Come with us. Use us. Work with us."

This is a paradigm shift and it's actually quite clever. Other organizations have not really claimed this empowering space. Other organizations have, like GRI, been providing tools, helping to get disclosures out there, relying on the inevitability of transparency as a catalyst for change, which it is. And it works, up to a point. Many times, just by asking the questions and analyzing the data for sustainability reports, companies start to change. But at the same time, catalysts need reagents (I did an Open University course once in basic chemistry, believe it or not.) GRI's new strategic focus adds the reagent. No-one else is doing this systematically, as far as I am aware.  I believe GRI's new strategy may just be one of those things that you hear and say, hmm, that's so obvious. But for GRI, it's quite a shift. 

In recent years, GRI has been outpaced by a dynamic market that pulled companies in many, often conflicting directions in terms of sustainability disclosure. The fragmentation of the market has intensified, and according to Michael Meehan , it's not going to stop. Rather than try to dominate the reporting space, GRI now wants to harness and grow the energies in that space to deliver better outcomes. GRI calls this Empowering Sustainable Decisions. 

But, to empower implies full trust in GRI as a leader in understanding how we can not only measure, quantify and report sustainability impacts but also improve them by integrating sustainability into all processes. Empowering sustainable decisions implies that ultimately, it's the GRI reporting process and framework that is key to all that we might be able to decide in our sustainable world. The trick is what you do with it after you reported it. But where does GRI get it's legitimacy to claim this empowerment platform? 

GRI sees itself as a launch pad for innovation, but so far, innovation has not been immediately recognizable as GRI DNA. In many cases, GRI has been left out of the running in the most innovative approaches in sustainability accounting today. The Integrated Reporting movement has entirely side-stepped GRI and new, sexy integrated reports are as far from GRI as they are from actually being integrated. The entire sector discussion has whooshed over the head of GRI. SASB has cornered that space, and the smart selection of Michael Bloomberg as the SASB Chair has brought SASB the very first practical application of a SASB standard in Bloomberg's  2014 Impact Report. The whole natural capital accounting world has moved beyond the GRI frame of reference and WRI/WBCSD/CDP have driven new sustainability approaches in several sectors. Becoming a launch-pad for innovation in sustainability decision making is therefore no small ask. And as for collaboration, it takes more than a strategy to make this work. It takes others who want to collaborate. Michael Meehan already hinted that the affinity for collaboration in this space so far is not terribly exciting and creating any sort of common ground will continue to be an uphill battle. And as for better reporting, well, don't get me started, as Billy Crystal said about 3,000 times in  Mr. Saturday Night. The diplomatic way of referring to better reporting is that there is an ocean of opportunity to improve the quality of disclosures and of reporting. GRI has skillfully avoided doing anything tangible to improve the quality of reporting, focusing only on the quality of reporting frameworks and the quality of reporters through GRI training. In terms of influencing policy, although some successes have been chalked up, GRI does not figure as the framework of choice in some of the leading policy declarations we have seen in the past few years, such as the European Directive on Non-Financial Disclosure.  

The new strategy, empowering everything, is therefore going to be a real stretch. But it's the right stretch. And let's face it, GRI has a few credits in the bank to give us hope, if not yet total confidence, that GRI can pull this off. After all, GRI has led the sustainability reporting movement, there can be no doubt about that. Even if the European Directive is a little vague, as was Paragraph 47 at Rio+20 before it, there can be no doubt that GRI has steered the agenda and positively influenced outcomes that achieved something if not everything. With G4, GRI placed material impacts in high-res, and that catapulted materiality to center-stage of the discourse, well beyond the leverage that had been achieved by AccountAbility some years earlier. Even if companies are still not quite comfortable with focus - relevant transparency as I call it - we can see an emerging shift toward material disclosures in favor of any and every and all disclosures. GRI has maintained the multi-stakeholder aspect of its approach for broad legitimacy, which, despite some wobbles, remains an achievement in this space, unlike, for example, the IIRC that is dominated by investment portfolios. As Michal Meehan told me: "The multi-stakeholder approach is so valuable. It ensures you have a very considered approach to what information is relevant and necessary. It leads to users believing that the data selection is trustworthy. It means that users of reported information can trust the process that defined how the data is created. We need to make sure everyone has a voice."

On balance, then, we can afford to give GRI a couple of years to see if the new focus is starting to shape up. Some elements are in place - a very strong advocacy team, an expansive network and increasing uptake of G4. Also, we all recognize a sense of underlying frustration that is sometimes expressed around the fact that, if reporting is actually mainstream, why have we not fixed the world? Perhaps GRI and the empowering piece is what's going to make the difference. I asked Michal Meehan how he expects to measure success. What will be different in 2020 when we have the "how did we do" conversation? Michael said: "I have  a whole load of KPIs that we could put in place - but to be honest, I want to shoot for a world where you don't have sustainability professionals and other leaders in organizations sitting in silos. I am hoping to see companies integrating sustainability into all business decisions. When GRI first started up, we had to convince everyone that sustainability is important. Now, people get it. What they need is better tools to integrate sustainability into the way they make decisions."

A word of caution, however, before we get too euphoric. Let's not get so caught up being empowering that we lose sight of where we came from: the need for organizations to account for their impacts on the lives of all stakeholders (and not just their bank accounts), as the key to creating positive and sustainable change in the world on the planet. Let's not get so empowered that we forget that, at the core, we have still got to grind through the task of delivering sustainability disclosures and/or reports that are robust, relevant and balanced. 

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 Sustainability Report? Contact elaine: info@b-yond.biz