Accounting for Sustainability is launched by HM Prince of Wales and SustainAbility finds that thorough CSR reports are rare. The Materiality Report also urges companies to identify social and environmental risks linked to their performance.
Accounting for sustainability
The Accounting for Sustainability Project was launched by the Prince of Wales on December 6. The project aims to develop a range of measures and systems to encourage organisations to better gauge the environmental and social costs of their actions.
An Accounting for Sustainability Group has been established, which will look at the development of tools to facilitate the embedding of sustainability practices into everyday business practice. The group consists of representatives from the public, private and civic society sectors.
The first step of the project has been to investigate already existing trends in the measurement and reporting of sustainability practices in Britain and abroad. The next step is to develop measurement tools. With the help of Business in the Community, the project’s website will be expanded in conjunction with the programme and it will provide information about climate change developments as well as the progress of the initiative.
The Accounting for Sustainability Group is a small cross-sector team established by HRH The Prince of Wales in June 2006. Contact Accounting for Sustainability Project www.accountingforsustainability.org.uk
Accountability materiality report
Only 36% of UK companies think environmental, social and governance risk is sufficiently accounted for in non-financial documentation and businesses should integrate environmental and social issues into core business strategy, according to AccountAbility’s Materiality Report launched late November.
The Materiality Report: Aligning Strategy Performance and Reporting urges companies to move beyond compliance and offers a toolkit to assist managers to identify material environmental and social risks linked to their performance. The report also sets out a framework, which aims to improve assurance, and is aligned to the standards of the GRI G3 sustainability reporting standards and the AA1000 Assurance Standard. The aim of the publication is to promote understanding of the alignment between sustainable development and business strategy and the importance this has when communicating with stakeholders.
AccountAbility, the London-based membership organisation specialising in accountability and sustainable development, prepared the report in partnership with BT and Lloyds Register Quality Assurance. Contact AccountAbility 020 7549 0400 www.accountability21.net
Sustainability reporting award finalists announced
Reports have been short-listed for the Ceres and Association of Chartered Certified Accountants North American Sustainability Reporting Awards 2006. The final winners will be revealed at an awards ceremony in Toronto on April 12 and at the Ceres Annual Conference in Boston on April 25. Rather than reward CSR performance, the awards are designed to reward disclosure of performance in sustainability indicators. Some of the reports short-listed are Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Citigroup, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Shell Canada, Starbucks, Telus, Timberland, Vancity Group and Weyerhaeuser. Contact Ceres 00 1 617 216 7215 www.ceres.org; ACCA 00 1 416 966 2225 www.accaglobal.com
Thorough csr reports are rare
Only 15-20% of CSR reports released by corporations provide “very thorough and complete” accounts of their ethical practices, according to a report released by KLD Research & Analytics and SustainAbility. Speaking to the Christian Science Monitor, report authors said that companies are “getting better” at telling the whole truth, in comparison to the greater lack of transparency in reporting 10 years ago. They cite Nike as an example of a company which has greatly improved its SR reporting as a result of previously bad ethical publicity. Contact Andrew Brengle KLD Research & Analytics 00 1 617 426 5270 www.kld.com; Jeff Erikson SustainAbility Inc 00 1 202 315 4150 www.sustainability.com
In brief
EMI has released its annual social responsibility report, Sound Values 2006, focusing on the five areas of its programme, including its commitment to environmental management and the way in which it deals with marketplace issues. Contact EMI 020 7795 7000 www.emigroup.com;
National Grid has achieved the highest ranking in environmental and sustainability reporting, according to analysis by the Roberts Environmental Center. Contact Roberts Environmental Center 001 909 621 8190 www.roberts.cmc.edu
Scottish Power has published its 2005/2006 corporate responsibility report only on the internet. The company believes that the web-only approach will make the report easily accessible and available to more people. Contact Scottish Power 0141 636 4787 www.scottishpower.com
Financial services group Prudential has published a series of webcast interviews providing information on its corporate responsibility activity around the world. The interviews cover the company’s approach to CR, its employee volunteering programmes around the world and their wider community programme. Contact Prudential www.prudential.co.uk
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