Happy Holidays Ho Ho Ho!

As usual, around this time of year, the #CSR Reporting Blog wishes all its followers Happy Holidays. I think I said it best last year:

This is a time to reflect on the joys of life and the joys of publishing Sustainability Reports. A time to be merry and indicator-driven. This is a time to eat well and edit well, engage with friends and dialogue with all stakeholders, think about what's important to you and call it material, recommit to your higher purpose and approve your reporting budget.

Usually the #CSR Reporting Blog finds an innovative and humorous way to spread holiday cheer. But there is a limit to the number of alternative ways we can find to say Merry Christmas, Seasons Greetings, Have A Cool Yule and such other appropriate expressions. So imagine my delight to discover, via  an online dictionary, that one can simply wish people Ho Ho Ho!

So, to all the #CSR Reporting Blog readers and everyone working in the #CSR and #Sustainability field to help make our world a better place, I wish you a:

HAPPY HO HO HO!

And to all my horse-loving readers: Happy Ho Ho Whoa!
And to all my candle-loving readers: Happy Ho Ho Glow!
And to all my fair-minded readers: Happy Ho Ho Quid Pro Quo!
And to all my entertainment loving readers: Happy Ho Ho Show!
And to all my javelin fan readers: Happy Ho Ho Throw!
And to all my readers vacationing in France: Happy Ho Ho Bordeaux!
And to all my Marilyn lookalike readers: Happy Ho Ho Monroe!
And to all my readers with bunions, Happy Ho Ho Toe!
And to all my readers using drip irrigation from Netafim, Happy Ho Ho Flow!
And to all my depressed readers, Happy Ho Ho Low!
And to all my baker readers, Happy Ho Ho Dough!
And to all my art-loving readers, Happy Ho Ho Vincent Van Gogh!
And to all my nostalgic readers, Happy Ho Ho Ago!
And to all my martial arts loving readers, Happy Ho Ho Taekwondo!
And to all my positive thinking readers, Happy Ho Ho Pro!
And to all my readers called Joe, Happy Ho Ho Joe!
And to all my readers who love anise flavored alcohol, Happy Ho Ho Pernod!
And to all my archery loving readers, Happy Ho Ho Bow!
And to all those who dream of a White Christmas, Happy Ho Ho Snow!
And to all my American Indian tribal readers, Happy Ho Ho Navaho!
And to my doubtful readers, Happy Ho Ho Although!
And to my readers who like to hear things twice, Happy Ho Ho Echo!
And to all my anonymous readers, Happy Ho Ho John Doe!
And to my readers who are Oprah Winfrey fans, Happy Ho Ho Talk Show!
And to all my readers who already heard the news, Happy Ho Ho Know!
And to my son, who loves building things, Happy Ho Ho Lego!
And to my spiritualist readers, Happy Ho Ho Tarot!
And to all my male readers who think they are the world's gift, Happy Ho Ho Macho!
And to my bird-loving readers, Happy Ho Ho Crow!
And to all my readers who have reached their peak, Happy Ho Ho Plateau!
And to my readers with enemies, Happy Ho Ho Foe!
And to all my Mexican readers, Happy Ho Ho Nacho!
And to all my readers who love cold soup, Happy Ho Ho Gazpacho!
And to all my readers who like to travel in a boat, Happy Ho Ho Row!
And to all my readers with a common blood type, Happy Ho Ho O!
And to all my Spanish speaking readers, Happy Ho Ho Uno!
And to all my readers who will be in the Holy Land this Christmas, Happy Ho Ho Jericho!
And to all my Alfred Hitchcock loving readers, Happy Ho Ho Psycho!
And to all my sustainability minded readers, Happy Ho Ho Eco!
And to all my Jewish readers, Happy Ho Ho Oy Vey!


And finally, to all my readers publishing a #G4 Sustainability Report in 2014: 
Happy Ho Ho Woe!



elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

The Mystery of the 50 Angolan Sustainability Reports

KPMG published its 2013 Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting recently. For a reporting geek like me, that's like getting five helpings of ice-cream all at once. A positive feast of information all about reports. I love it.

I am still working through the entire thing (gotta do a little work once in a while) but there is something that struck me as rather mentionworthy.

Angola.

How many Sustainability Reports get published in Angola?  In the GRI reports database, there is not a single report from Angola since the start of the database. I looked in the CorporateRegister.com database, and there are 10 reports from 3 companies in Angola published between 2007 and 2011. Nothing in 2012 or 2013. Even the UN Global Compact has no participants from Angola. 

So how is it that, in the KPMG survey, 50% of the top 100 companies in Angola are noted as reporting on CSR?

That's a higher rate than 6 other countries: South Korea, New Zealand, Greece, UAE, Kazakhstan and Israel.

Not only that, in the KPMG survey, Angola is way up there with the GRI-based reporting leader companies, with over 80% of these mystery Angolan reports being GRI-based.

In the CorporateRegister.com database, I can find 16 reports from Kazakhstan, and as many as 585 reports from South Korea, with the other countries in between. So, how come Angola has achieved a 50% reporting rate? There is no stock exchange in Angola, as this is scheduled for 2016.

The KPMG methodology looks at the top 100 national companies in each country. A 50% reporting rate means that 50 of the top 100 companies in Angola have publicly disclosed their corporate responsibility performance in some form of corporate responsibility or sustainability report.

So where are all these reports? This is a mystery. I love mysteries. Just call me Agatha.

I realized that I know very little about Angola, so I am going to make this post a little Angola discovery journey.

Angola has a population of just over 18 million people living in an area of 1.2 million sq. km. Portuguese is the official language and Luanda is the capital. Angola's main claim to fame is its oil, with an OPEC quota of 1.65 million barrels per day. GDP per capita is $6,500 which ranks 144 in the world league table. There are only 9.4 million mobile telephones in use, so that's an opportunity for the telco sector, and only 0.6 million internet users, an even bigger opportunity. Human trafficking, drugs and forced labor in agriculture are mentioned as some of the transnational issues that Angola must address. The country has some spectacular sights and Kalandula Falls seems like it should be on everybody's visit-here-some-day list.

Doing business in Angola according to the World Bank Group is not a piece of cake, and Angola ranks low on the easy-peasy scale. In fact, Forbes recently gave Angola the big thumbs down as one of the worst 5 countries in the world to do business in. This is a great opportunity, therefore, for CSR and sustainability. 

However, when checking out the ice-cream scene in Angola, all I came up with was a list of ice-cream parlors in Angola, IN, which last time I checked, was in the U.S.  Maybe that's the Angola that's in the KPMG survey? 

But I am still wondering, where are those 50 reports? Now, now, Agatha, don't give up just yet.

I tried to find a reliable list of the largest 100 companies in Angola. Wikipedia lists a few notable companies in Angola. 36 companies to be exact. Are these the companies in the KPMG N100 list? Where are the remaining 64?

I shot off an email to the folks at KPMG to see if they could shed any light on the Angola mystery, and I am awaiting a response. In the meantime, I confess to being stumped. OK. You can stop calling me Agatha now. 

UPDATE (Dec 18): I just heard back from the folks at KPMG (thanks, KPMG) who say as follows: "Angolese companies included in the research in many cases are subsidiaries of large global companies that issue CR reporting in other countries (for example, Total, who publishes a group report in France). As all subsidiaries are included in such group reports, they count at the local (Angola) level as well, including the reference to the GRI."

Mystery solved. Sort of. Apparently Angola's reporting rate of 50% is entirely made up of global companies operating a subsidiary in that country. Ditto for other countries. No wonder the N100 global reporting rate is 71%. I wonder what it would be if KPMG took out the reports that were not written by companies headquartered in the countries surveyed. Any guesses?   

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

G4. It's a Hat Trick

I am proud to announce the publication of the third G4 CORE level report that my firm, Beyond Business Ltd, has supported this year, completing a Hat Trick of three G4 report publications in this reporting-history-landmark-month-of-December 2013. First there was GSK Romania. Then Caesars Entertainment. Now, ECI Telecom brings it home with the company's second Sustainability Report covering year 2012. 

Founded in 1961, ECI Telecom Ltd, headquartered in Israel, is a privately-owned provider of transport and access solutions for communications networks. ECI designs, develops, manufactures, markets and supports telecommunications solutions for voice, data, video and multimedia services. ECI serves over 250 customers - wireline and wireless service providers and utilities and government organizations -  in over 70 countries. At the end of 2012, ECI employed over 2,000 people in over 25 countries. 

ECI's main sustainability contribution, that has a positive impact on society, is providing the capabilities for telecoms companies to connect their customers to the worldwide web. Most users (like me) are completely oblivious to the technology and infrastructure that is required to help us watch Fast and Furious 6 on demand from the comfort of our own iPad, whatsapp our Jerusalem-in-the-snow photo collection to our friends enjoying the sunshine in Buenos Aires, singalong to Alex and Sierra's latest X Factor USA offering  which we downloaded from iTunes, check out the Golden Girls bloopers on YouTube without stopping to reload every second, or send important business files over a high-speed broadband connection without them turning up at the other end missing page 33. High-speed broadband is changing the way we live our lives in so many ways, and ECI's technology is helping the people of many countries, from Togo to Philippines, from Russia to Germany, and from anywhere to everywhere, get a piece of the action. 

ECI's sustainability communications journey started in 2009 with the publication of a first standalone Communication on Progress (COP) to the United Nations Global Compact, which was followed by another standalone COP in 2010. In 2011, ECI Telecom decided to further consolidate its reporting efforts by progressing to the more widely recognized and respected reporting framework of the GRI and delivered an Application Level B Sustainability Report. This time around, for the 2012 Sustainability Report, ECI took the step of reviewing its sustainability journey and performance, and the issues that matter, and engaged in a materiality process to support adoption of the most advanced sustainability reporting framework available, GRI's G4. 

This makes ECI Telecom the first telecoms company in the world (as far as I can tell) to report in accordance with the G4 framework, demonstrating agility, adaptability and responsiveness to stakeholder expectations which are characteristics, not only of the company's reporting approach, but also of its approach to serving its customers around the world. My personal experience of working with ECI Telecom for the past four years confirms this. I have come to know well many people in the company, including most of the executives whom I have met personally, and a wide range of other management team members. Despite the competitive challenges of the telecoms infrastructure market, and the ongoing need to review the company's structure in response to market pressures, ECI's commitment to sustainable practices has never wavered. In the Israeli context, where very few companies publish sustainability reports (Israel came in with the lowest ranking out of 41 countries for rate of reporting among the 100 largest companies in each country, in the recently published KPMG Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting for 2013), ECI Telecom stands out as a company that values accountability and transparency.   

There is a certain satisfaction I gain from supporting the evolution of a company's reporting progress. UNGC Communication on Progress reports are a mixed bunch, and not always terribly revealing. Ranging from a collection of one-pagers, which barely even respond to the description of Communication, let alone Progress, to the more sophisticated 100+ page GRI A+ full-blown sustainability reports which include a brief mention of UNGC participation, seeking out a COP is never a very safe bet. It is because ECI took a different approach, and treated the COP as an important and relevant way of communicating progress to all stakeholders, and not just filling in the UNGC online COP submission form, that the transition to a Sustainability Report was a natural next step. It is because the approach to Sustainability Reporting was not just about reporting, but more about what matters, that the transition to G4 was within early reach. 

After an internal process, ECI Telecom prioritized four categories of sustainability impacts that support the company's ongoing sustainability approach. 

ACCESSIBILITY - EFFICIENCY  - NETWORKS - INTEGRITY

Nine most material issues were selected for detailed reporting and inclusion in the G4 CORE report.

Performance highlights from the report include:

• Major progress in auditing main suppliers in the supply chain – ten audits on key suppliers performed in 2012. 
• Increase in customer loyalty scores from 90.8 to 91.6 
• Second time award of the Diamond Mark by the Israeli Standards Institute for compliance to seven quality standards. 
• 9,600 hours volunteered in the community by ECI employees.
• 31.7% absolute energy consumption reduction between 2008 – 2012, and 31.5% reduction in corresponding carbon emissions. 
• Waste reduction from 500 tons in 2008 to just 70 tons in 2012. 
• New Human Rights policy published. 
• Highest possible ranking, Platinum Plus, in local responsible business ranking in Israel. 
• Further improvement in E-Tasc scores to 97.2.

And by now, you absolutely know what I am going to say next:
Read the report. 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 at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Materiality Matters. Checked.

Caesars Entertainment Corporation publishes today its fourth CSR and Sustainability Report for 2012. This is a groundbreaking report. (Disclosure: I assisted with the development and writing of this report. But don't let that fool you. It is still groundbreaking.)

Why is it groundbreaking? Because it's first in many ways:

• It's the first Sustainability Report from a U.S. based gaming-entertainment corporation which is in accordance with GRI G4 CORE level guidelines.
• It's one of the first G4 CORE reports published anywhere in the world (there are less than 20 at the time of writing).
• It's the first G4 report from any U.S. corporation which is published in line with G4 CORE level guidelines (two other U.S. companies published G4 "referenced" reports, one non-profit published a G4 CORE report and a public agency published a G4-referenced Sustainability Review, making Caesars the first corporation to go public with CORE).
• It's the first Sustainability Report to be published after having passed the spanking new G4 Materiality Matters check. The G4 Materiality Matters check opened for business on December 2nd, and Caesars was one of the first organizations to apply. Actually, I believe this is a FIRST IN THE WORLD G4 CORE Materiality-Matters-checked-by-GRI publication! Correct me, please, if I am wrong, but I have not seen any other report published that can make this claim. 

I am convinced. Groundbreaking it is. It has been a great pleasure and privilege for me to assist such a fabulous organization committed to not only reporting, but to living its sustainability journey with passion and purpose. 

I'll be honest and say that I was a little (a lot) (ok, a ton) skeptical when GRI announced the Materiality Matters check. In this check, GRI promises to analyze responses to 11 materiality disclosures, and ensure that the responses meet the reporting requirements, are correctly located in the report and, equally as important, are easy to locate. I thought this check was probably not worth bothering with. How hard can it be to get a few disclosures in the right place? I felt that the check should include confirmation of the location of all the Disclosures on Management Approach and the Performance Indicators that are required reporting once a company has declared its material Aspects. In fact, I still feel that this would be an important addition to help ensure the integrity of a report.

However, my skepticism faded when I realized that there is room for error. GRI required us to make some modifications to the draft report in order to pass the Materiality Matters check. An incorrect page number in the index. An incomplete link to an external assurance statement. Addition of "disclosure labels" in the body of the report to help the reader locate specific disclosures. Little things, but important ones for report users. And important for reporting companies, because in these little things lies a certain attention to detail that can make a report navigable, coherent and, most importantly, credible. In the end, I was pleased that the folks at Caesars Entertainment took the brave step of submitting their report to GRI scrutiny, and was entirely relieved when GRI delivered the Materiality Matters icon. 

Over several months, I have come to know many of the Caesars people, and engaged with over 50 executives and staff in thousands of minutes of VOIP, landline, cyberspace and broadband. No, I didn't actually get to Caesars Palace in person this time around, but I did feel that I was there in spirit as I enjoyed many spare minutes playing Slotomania. 

One of the fascinating parts of this reporting process was the review of Caesars material issues - this was done in several meetings with managers within the company, and external experts from World Resources Institute and others. It was a great process, and resulted, I believe in a more rounded and balanced core of most material issues which formed the heart of the report content.

Another thing that guided the structure and content of this report was the Caesars Code of Commitment. This Code was developed in 2000, and you don't have to have a very long conversation with anyone at all at Caesars to realize that it's the way they live their work. The four key pillars of the Code: commitment to employees, guests, communities and environmental stewardship helped create a perfect framework for Caesars' material issues and the story of Caesars' CSR and sustainability performance in the last year. Helping create Vibrant Communities is at the heart of this story, and the report demonstrates how Caesars makes a positive difference.

I am sure you will want to go take a look at the report yourself, so I won't spoil your fun. A few highlights, however, to whet your appetite, from Caesars' accomplishments in 2012:

• Completion of 37 corporate efficiency projects with an investment of $3.5 million delivering nearly 24 million kWh energy savings per year. 
• 24% waste diversion from landfill, measured for the first time. 
• 41% of women in management roles. 
• More than 3.6 million hours invested in employee training. 
• Increase in customer satisfaction scores 2.56 percent, reaching the highest satisfaction levels in Caesars' history. 
• In 2012, 85 percent of Caesars gaming revenues were related to customers’ specific preferences, enabling Caesars to align special rewards with what customers wanted most. The hotel industry average was 56 percent. 
• Caesars Entertainment takes a public stand on important issues to support vibrant communities and social justice, including supporting comprehensive immigration reform that both advances border security as well as streamlines the immigration process for those who are willing to work hard and complete the legal process. 
• In 2012, in the U.S. alone, Caesars employees donated more than 130,000 hours to support local communities.
• Significant investment in Responsible Gaming with over 35,000 employees trained in Responsible Gaming tools in 2012 alone. 

By the way, Caesars also publishes key data which reports the company's contribution to helping develop Vibrant Communities in different states across the U.S. So if you live in Arizona, Nevada, Mississippi or Pennsylvania, for example, you can download data that is specifically relevant to your community. 

And by now, you probably know what I am going to say next. Read the report. 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 at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

A Crown among Reports

I am already getting excited about the third annual Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference, which will take place in London on 25th February 2014. This year, we have a fabulous line-up of speakers and a great agenda addressing the critical issues influencing the Sustainability Reporting landscape, ranging from the emerging regulatory frameworks to the global versus local reporting, to reflecting material issues and more. There's going to be a BIG RUSH for places, so better book early :) (Contact me for a registration discount code.)

Each year, I try to engage with some of the key speakers prior to the conference, and also check out what they have been doing in the sustainability space. First up this year is Mark Gough. 

Mark is the Head of Sustainability at The Crown Estate, and is responsible for developing, delivering and driving innovative ways of embedding sustainability into the business. He is on the Natural Capital Committee (Landowners Group) and is a Sustainability Champion of the Scottish Public Sector Climate Leaders Forum (PSCLF). Previously he was the Global Environmental Manager at Reed Elsevier and has sat on a number of national and international sustainability committees, including the steering committee of the United Nations CEO Water Mandate, the Board of the Alliance for Water Stewardship and has chaired the publishing sector's Environmental Action Group.

The Crown Estate is a fascinating organization - not a typical publicly traded type of corporation. It is a diverse property business with a capital value of £8.6 billion, and a total property value of £8.1 billion. The property managed by the Crown Estate is owned by the Crown but is not the private property of the monarch. The Crown Estate is governed by an Act of Parliament and works supportively with government in Westminster, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and at a local level. In 2012/13, a net surplus (profit) of £252.6 million went to the Treasury for the benefit of the nation.

The Crown Estate employs approximately 460 staff, at ten different locations throughout the United Kingdom. The Crown Estate is formally accredited as an Investor in People (IiP) - a national quality standard which sets the level of good practice for improving an organisation's performance through its people. IiP recognises an increased focus on training, employee involvement in the business and communications throughout the organisation.

In 2013, The Crown Estate published its first Integrated Report. Prior to that, the Crown Estate had already integrated much of its thinking about sustainable business in alignment with the concept of Total Contribution. The Crown Estate published a first Total Contribution Report for 2011/2012 together with a detailed methodology description. This seems to me to be a great kind of SROI type of approach which looks at impacts and outcomes, rather than just activities. I recommend you all take a look! Here are some of the key findings:

The 2013 Integrated Report of the Crown Estate is one of the most interesting I have come across. Everyone knows I have not been a fan of Integrated Reporting, mainly because I have felt it focuses too much on the financial stakeholders and leaves all the rest behind. This report by the Crown Estate is a little more accessible to the non-financial genius, and creates many links between sustainability aspects of performance and financial outcomes both for the company and for society.

The report contains a description of how The Crown Estate creates value and a list of 14 material issues described in some detail. For example, the material issue of Attracting Talent is described as follows, and the narrative and data supporting the defined issue is located later in the report.

The material issues include elements relating to business performance, organisation and people, environmental impacts and customer relationships and more.

By the way, the 2013 Integrated Report of The Crown Estate is shortlisted in this years online CRRA '14 awards, in the Integrated Reporting category, so it you take a look, and think it's great, please vote!

Here is my interview with Mark Gough, a key member of the team behind the report. 

Tell us about your professional background and how you came to be Head of Sustainability at The Crown Estate. 

I started out in sustainability, as many people do, by noticing something was not working and trying to fix it. I was doing some part time work for a publisher while looking for a change in career. At the end of the working day, there was a big pile of paper and no recycle bin, so I took it home. The next week I noticed that every desk had a big pile of paper on it, so I put them into a white sack and carried them home. The next week I came in and the police were waiting for me. Some computers had been stolen and when they had checked the CTV they saw me leaving the office with this big white sack. They did not arrest me as I explained I was recycling. But I was told ‘you are a temp, we are not interested, and stop doing it’! 

After that, with some other like-minded colleagues, we set up a Green Team and found recycling solutions that the company could implement and started helping to develop a sustainability strategy. I started going to night-school to learn more about it. I continued to work for the publishing company, moving up to advise the head office and then the global head office where I became Global Environmental Manager. I stayed there for 13 years, working on several other projects including with the UN on the CEO Water Mandate and chairing the publishing industry Environmental Action Group. 

What specific experience prepared you for this role? 

In terms of the property industry, specifically, we had a very big global estate in my previous role, so I had spent 13 years working on improving assets. The magazine I was working on at the beginning was a leading property magazine, so I was familiar with the key issues relating to sustainability in property. But, I don't think it's about the product that a company deals in that makes you a good or bad Head of Sustainability. It is about helping develop a strategic direction, being able to identify trends, risks and opportunities and helping the company to become successful long into the future. 

You were appointed in early 2012. What have been your priorities in the first 18 months in the job? And looking toward the next few years? 

The first thing we did was to rip up our previous sustainability strategy. We have since been working to develop one single business strategy that has sustainability at its heart. Sustainability should not be a bolt-on but at the centre of decision making and we are clear that by doing this we will be more successful. 

So what is our approach? To have only one strategy with sustainability at its heart, to develop the tools to embed sustainability into decision making and to pass responsibility for delivery to employees rather than committee and experts like me. We are very clear that our ambition should be to fully integrate sustainability by the time our ten year vision concludes. 

How does the unique position of the Crown Estate lend itself to the sustainability agenda? And where are the conflicts? 

The Crown Estate is unique. We are an independent property company set up under an Act of Parliament. We hold some great assets. We also have a very clear commercial mandate, so like many companies we have to make commercial returns. The way we do this though can be different. We take a long term approach, recognising that making a positive impact in all material areas of our business is fully aligned with our commercial ambitions. We are keen to ensure that we create greater opportunities, not less, for a shared future with our partner, customers and our broader stakeholders. We have been looking at how we can measure the broader value we create through a process we call Total Contribution and this is helping us to redefine our approach. We are not allowed to borrow money so this raises some interesting challenges and has meant that we have had to work collaboratively on joint ventures with partners who share our values. Also, helping people to understand that we have this commercial remit to return all of our net revenue to the Treasury each year is something we are continually trying to get across. Proving then that sustainability increases this revenue is really important. 

This year you delivered an integrated report. In what ways did the development of the integrated reporting movement influenced your thinking? What have been the benefits for you in this approach? 

It has been great to be able to share ideas and thoughts with other brave companies who are attempting to grapple with integrated reporting. Being part of the pilot programme, testing out some of the ideas and helping to contributing to the framework has been an essential to our success. We also have worked with an excellent design company (Radley Yeldar) and a critical friend (EY) to make the principles of IR relevant to us. 

What are the most significant challenges for you in the reporting process? How do you ensure all sustainability issues are reflected in a balanced way? 

In the past we focused on reflecting all sustainability issues in a balanced way, but this created a homogenized approach where everything has the same value, which is just not true. One of the most important steps we took through working on an integrated thinking approach was to focus on what is material. For example already 98% of our waste is diverted from landfill, a great sustainability result from lots of hard work, but this is not material to our business, so you will not find this in our annual integrated report. You can though go online and find out more about it. It is after all integrated reporting and not just an integrated report so it should run through all of the communications. 

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

Integrated Reporting was set up with investors as the main audience. We don’t have investors in the same way as other publicly traded companies, but it is important for us to explain our license to operate to all of our stakeholders. Integrated reporting is a much better way of doing this. Let’s face it, very few people actually read our sustainability reports. The best compliment we have had is "I really enjoyed reading your integrated report".

Thanks, Mark!

So, don't delay, sign up RIGHT NOW for the Smarter Sustainability Reporting conference and come and hear more from the Crown Estate and many more fascinating companies. 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

10 First-time Reports in CRRA '14

Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! It's that time of the year again. (I say that every year when the CRRA online sustainability reporting awards open for voting). It's sooooooooooooooooooo exciting. We all get to VOTE for the BEST CR / CSR / SUSTAINABILITY report of the last year or so. That is so much fun. I love CRRA time, now in its seventh year, with 52 reports shortlisted in 9 categories. As usual, I'll be selecting some of the future winners (and non-winners) in a number of posts as we all place our votes until the deadline of 31st January 2014. As usual, if you vote you can win prizes :) But don't forget, you can't vote for your own company or your vote is invalidated.

(Note: All report links go to report profile pages on corporateregister.com. You have to be a registered user to view these pages.)

As usual, I am going to start with the first-timers, my absolute favorite category, and I promise, it's not only because one of my clients, GSK Latvia, is shortlisted. If you like the report, please vote  for GSK Latvia! 

There are ten first timer reports, amounting to 548 fascinating pages, from eight countries (including three from U.S. based companies). Six of the ten reports are GRI-based, one is assured and the rest are not. I decided to select three things I like about each of these ten reports.

I will admit to having trouble identifying three "likes" for each report. There are some reports which I didn't like at all, and had to wonder why on earth they were shortlisted. I always remind myself that each report is an achievement, especially a first report, and someone, somewhere has worked very hard to deliver it. That deserves positive acknowledgement. Some reports are clearly a reflection of the very early stage of a sustainability approach and this has to be considered when viewing first-time reports. However, some reports are more of a tick-the-box exercise or a PR publication. In this first-timer batch, there are some which are highly credible and I regretted limiting myself to only three "likes". In the interests of fairness, however, and without wishing to compromise the voting, I selected exactly three "likes" for each report, no more, no less. I avoided the "dislikes" - in some cases that would have been a much longer list!

   

Ascendas Pte Ltd, Singapore, Real Estate
Annual Report FY 12/13. From Spaces to Places

GRI undeclared level. 107 pages. This is an annual report with a sustainability section starting on page 88.

LIKE ONE: The report title. This report is about transforming spaces into places. Great concept - a clever expression of this real estate company's higher purpose and contribution to a better life.
LIKE TWO: Ms Chong Siak Ching. The only female director of Ascendas out of 14 total directors.
LIKE THREE:  Fabulous photos.

Chocolats Halba, Switzerland, Food Sector 
Sustainability Report 2012. Added value through sustainability
GRI C level. 34 pages.

LIKE ONE: Contextual explanation of challenges facing the cocoa sector.
LIKE TWO: Three years of performance metrics, clearly laid out and easy to read.
LIKE THREE: Detailed sustainability strategy for 2013 - 2015 with clearly defined targets, which seem quite stretching.

Colas Limited. UK, Construction Sector Sustainability Report 2012 
30 pages. Not GRI. 

LIKE ONE:  Straightforward, no-frills structure with five main sections: Environment, Community, People, Safety, Customers. 

LIKE TWO:   "Aims and Aspirations" section. A mix of qualitative and quantitative targets.

LIKE THREE: Honesty: "We are disappointed that our CO2e emissions appear to be growing..."

Ernst and Young Americas Patterns of Progress 2012. How our people are shaping our sustainability journey
56 pages, GRI C Level

LIKE ONE: Nice description of the way E & Y developed its materiality matrix. 

LIKE TWO: Clear reporting on gender composition of the business at different levels.  

LIKE THREE: Photos, names and email addresses of sustainability contacts for providing feedback. 

GSK LATVIA Corporate Responsibility Report 2012. Committed to our Community
35 pages. Not GRI

LIKE ONE: The first part.

LIKE TWO: The second part.

LIKE THREE: All the parts.

Ok, you can't expect me to be objective here. Sorry. Or not. But please take a look at GSK Latvia's report and if you like it, VOOOOOOTE :)

IHS Inc. USA. Information Services  Sustainability Report 2012
28 pages. Not GRI

LIKE ONE: Well-presented strategy in three parts: LIVE WELL – Strengthening People & Communities; LIVE WISE – Governing for Long-term Profitable Growth; LIVE GREEN – Caring for the Planet

LIKE TWO: Good spread of metrics throughout the report and provided as a summary in an appendix at the end of the report. 

LIKE THREE: Clear description of scope and boundaries of data collection methodologies listed in an appendix. 

JSR Micro Inc. USA, Chemicals. 2012 Corporate Social Responsibility Report
46 pages. GRI C Level

LIKE ONE: Letter from the President. It's simple, credible, modest and gives a good overview of the key aspects of JSR Micro's CSR approach and performance. 

LIKE TWO: Presentation of multi-year goals and current performance status.

LIKE THREE: Clear and well-written environmental section with performance metrics and explanations of different environmental initiatives. 

Kuwait Petroleum International Corporate Sustainability Report 2012
40 pages. GRI C Level

LIKE ONE: The report was prepared completely in-house without the help of consultants, or external advisors. 

LIKE TWO: Honesty: "Being an international oil Company working in five continents it took our CSR team a lot of effort to cover multinational stakeholder’s needs." 

LIKE THREE: Nice section on reducing paper consumption. 

LG U Plus Republic of Korea. Telecoms. Corporation Sustainability Report 2012
80 pages. GRI A+ Level

LIKE ONE: Impressive treatment of materiality, and top ten material issues listed with references to related narrative in the report itself. 

LIKE TWO: Great graphics, supporting the narrative well, demonstrating a systematic and process-oriented approach to almost everything that LG U+ does. 

LIKE THREE: Very interesting section on employees, with loads of detail, including a non-smoking incentive program with cash rewards, where employees take a nicotine test in order to qualify. 

Maynilad Water Services Inc  Philippines. Water. Sustainability Report 2011. Securing our Resources
92 pages. GRI B Level

LIKE ONE: Clear sustainability management framework.

LIKE TWO:  Nice section on engaging employees in energy conservation.

LIKE THREE: Interesting list of problems created by drought.

And now:
Did you read these reports? 
Here is a test:

QUESTIONS
ONE: Which company has offered staff a free weekly relaxation workshop since 2012 in addition to cut-price massages?
TWO: Which company has helped petroleum geoscience students as part of its community activity?
THREE: Which company supports the entrepreneurial dreams and economic future of the next generation?
FOUR: Which company had 14% of new hires in 2012 under the age of 25?
FIVE: Which company is a family- friendly company?
SIX: Which company has a small team which is big in terms of expertise, dedication and engagement?
SEVEN: Which company "believes the best is yet to come"?
EIGHT: Which company operates a Maeari and Jeong-Do Management Cyber Accusation Website?
NINE: Which company "capitalizes on all available communication channels to engage our employees actively"?
TEN: Which company has a managed in-door plant contract that has seen plants being placed on every floor and in each office for a healthier & greener environment?

SCROLL DOWN FOR ANSWERS:

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Here are the answers: 
ONE: Chocolats Halba
TWO: IHS Inc.
THREE: Ernst and Young
FOUR: Colas Construction
FIVE: GSK Latvia
SIX: JSR Micro
SEVEN: Maynilad Water Services
EIGHT: LG U+
NINE: Ascendas Pte
TEN: Kuwait Petroleum International





elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

A new G4 Report all about TRUST

I was just reading a post from the indefatigable Barbara Kimmel Brooks who is the key mover and shaker behind Trust in America TM, an organization that is leading some truly inspiring work in the area of building and educating about trust in business. The post is called The Hard Costs of Low Trust. It provides some startling statistics about the ways in which lack of trust can be so very costly to a business, as well as the opportunity for profitable growth that high trust can bring. 

The reason the post by Barbara Kimmel Brooks resonated so specifically with me is that, today, GSK Romania launches its second corporate responsibility report covering its business in 2012, and the title is "Valuing your Trust". 

This is the same title as the first report of GSK Romania, published last year. GSK Romania is my client and I supported the writing of the first report and of this current one. In preparation for the 2012 report, I asked the GM of GSK Romania, Pascal Prigent, if we should change the title and use another theme more relevant to the current GSK activities and recent sustainability performance in Romania. "No", he said. "Trust is something that last longer than a year or the life of one report. It's just as important a message this year as it was last year. People change, our market circumstances change, our business objectives may change, but valuing the trust of our stakeholders here in Romania is part of the way we do business. In fact, it's absolutely critical for doing business. I think retaining the title this year continues to reinforce the relevance of trust". So, Valuing your Trust won the day. 

In fact, as I have come to know GSK in Romania, I can appreciate both the ways in which the company works in order to engender trust, as well as the necessity of doing so in the healthcare climate in Romania. Romania has some of the most critical healthcare challenges in all of Europe including the highest infant mortality rate and some of the highest rates of chronic disease in Europe. Even a simple thing such as oral health, improved by daily brushing of your teeth, is not widespread in some parts of Romania, due to lack of education and awareness.

A company such as GSK may have important global priorities addressing some of the world's most serious healthcare challenges (GSK is the best performing company in the Access to Medicine Index 2012), but the local challenges faced by the Romanian subsidiary are no less important, and yes, even in Europe, there is much to be done. The challenge is not about selling more drugs. The challenge is to help support the healthcare infrastructure, so that the people get healthier, live better, and build a strong economy in which healthcare has a respected place. Enhancing access to the medicines that people need in an equitable, service-oriented healthcare system strengthens the economy as well as the people. GSK's local engagement in Romania is about continuing to build trust in a positive way with all local stakeholders in order to be able to continue contributing to this shared objective. If that happens, GSK Romania will gain a positive outcome: better business. The focus is on patients. Invest in them and everyone benefits. Everyone I have spoken to in GSK Romania – that's all the senior management and tens of managers in their teams – have a passion for this higher purpose. They both value trust and understand the value of trust. 

GSK Romania employs around 1,000 people in Romania, in pharma and consumer health businesses, supported by a GSK distribution company, Europharm Distribution, and a manufacturing plant in Brasov. GSK Romania launched this second report with the objective of transparently disclosing its material sustainability performance in 2012. It's a G4 CORE level report, one of the first in the world –I count less than 15 published G4 CORE level reports to date.

The report was written to align with GSK's global reporting (see GSK plc's global report for 2012 here) and is structured accordingly into four main narrative sections: Health for all, Our behavior, Our People, Our Planet, and supplemented by sections on the state of healthcare in Romania, governance and stakeholder engagement.

As part of the materiality process, we held, in Bucharest, for the first time, I believe, in Romania, a stakeholder engagement round table dialogue, to which several healthcare experts representing government, NGOs, community partners, media and more were invited for open discussions about what's important to them and their expectations of GSK Romania. Although my Romanian is not what it could be (I haven't even learned the Romania for "ice-cream" yet!), I was able to participate a little and also observe passionate discussions and hear summaries in English. Both participants and the GSK participating managers (who agreed to this process not without some trepidation) agree that this had been a truly valuable exchange, and important insights were gained which are helpful for GSK's strategy going forward. 

GSK selected 17 material issues as the focus of this G4 report.

Some stories from GSK Romania's report this year:

• GSK products reached 20 million consumers and patients in Romania. 
• Every day, almost 3,000 doses of GSK vaccines were delivered to Romanians to protect their health. 
• 62% of the workforce were women and 62% of managers were women. 
• GSK moved to a direct distribution system to pharmacies, in order to increase availability of medicines, with results after one year showing that instances of out-of-stock reduced from 75% to 38%, and an increase of 23% in pharmacies that did not experience a single out-of-stock during a 12 month period. 
• GSK partnered with the Ministry of Health and the Foreign Investors council and led a campaign to address one of the most serious challenges for healthcare in Romania: the migration of healthcare professionals out of Romania. Over 14,000 doctors have left Romania to work abroad since 2007. GSK led the development and launch of the campaign "My profession: Doctor in Romania" to focus public attention on the issues and help retain doctors in Romania. 
• GSK Romania partnered with the Romanian Paediatric Society to launch a program to support child healthcare focused nutrition, safety and vaccination. 
• GSK published its entire set of ethical policies online in a new Ethical Platform section on the GSK Romania website. Absolute transparency in the way GSK works is now available for all. 
• In 2012, GSK Romania advanced two creative and highly effective patient advocacy campaigns to support patients with HIV and lupus. 
• Following the announcement to close GSK's manufacturing plant in Brasov by 2015, GSK has put plans in place to support all of the factory's 243 employees and help them through this transition and take up other options. 
• As a healthcare company, GSK Romania invests in the health of its own employees and launched a new Partnership for Prevention health program so that employees can feel better, do more and live longer. 
• GSK Romania reduced energy consumption relative to business growth and achieved a 5% absolute reduction in water consumption. 100% of waste is recycled or incinerated – none is sent to landfill.    

Take a look at Valuing your Trust. Please give feedback.

In the meantime, catch Pascal Prigent, GM GSK Romania, talking about the report:




PS: Come meet the folks from GSK plc and GSK Romania speaking at the Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference on 25th February 2014 in London. Contact me for a registration discount!

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me at www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)