We offer some sage advice to CSR managers, many of whom will be in the midst of the annual reporting production trauma.
As this edition of Briefing goes to print, many of our readers will be in the midst of the annual report production trauma.
No self-respecting company of any significant size can these days go without a public account of its corporate citizenship activities. There remains the question, unfortunately, of who exactly reads them – we don’t mean to discourage you at this crucial time. At least we at Briefing are among those who do.
So, can we offer five short pieces of advice, present in the spirit of ‘if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well’? They are all things you are pretty certain to be doing – but in our experience, too few succeed:
Say what the company does – the main product or service lines, which countries or continents, who are the customers.
Explain who gets and gives the money – yours is a business after all, and ‘follow the money’ is a good instruction to anyone trying to understand your operations.
Explain how your products and services make the world a better or worse place – that’s the key, not the fringe extras you do or don’t do around that.
Now, be clear what you can do/are doing to improve these impacts, and where you can’t, how you are working with others.
Please put all the other ‘tick box’ stuff on your website where anyone who really wants it can find it. Most don’t, so spare the majority of us.
RELATED NEWS
The future of reporting
Half of FTSE 100 companies still produce operating and financial reviews, despite legislative changes to the regulatory requirements affecting corporate reporting.
In 2005, the government was championing new legislation calling for wider narrative reporting – the OFR. But, UK chancellor Gordon Brown scrapped the OFR in 2005 in favour of the more diluted legislation of the EU Business Review. However, The Future of Corporate Reporting, published by Tomorrow’s Company on February 12 concluded that companies find detailed reporting more beneficial than the guidelines outlined by the Business Review. So, although the OFR was binned, some companies are still sticking to its main principles.
The EU Business Review requires companies to provide narrative analysis of company development and performance as well as a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the company. It also requires identification of key performance indicators (financial and non-financial) and the company’s views of trends and factors affecting its development and performance.
Companies can now compare their sustainability practices with the help of a new online database. Learn from the Leaders, launched on March 1, contains 350 examples of reporting best practice drawn from over 100 of the world’s leading reporters. BT, Nike, Ford, BP, Rio Tinto and Shell are included in the list. The database was developed through benchmark research into sustainability reporting excellence and will enable sustainability practitioners to:
– compare their reporting with competitors and peers
– understand common targets and emerging trends by sector
– appreciate how others identify and manage material issues
– decide how to adapt narrative and design
– assess approaches to assurance and verification
The database was developed by sustainability strategy consultancy, SustainAbility, in partnership with Flag, the CSR communications agency, and data management system providers, credit360.
Less than 10% of CEOs believe that their main business duty is to create shareholder value and wealth for investors according to a report from the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College. Step Up: A Call for Business Leadership in Society looks at the views of 48 CEOs and senior executives and found that:
– public perceptions and expectations of the role of business has changed greatly since the 1970s
– Companies are facing new responsibilities
– Business is undergoing a major transition, which is shaping its role in society
– Companies must recognise the importance of social impacts for their long-term business success
The executives interviewed represented 27 multinational companies including GE, IBM, Ernst & Young, Nestlé and Timberland.
Contact – Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, 001 617 552 4545, www.bcccc.net
Football and CSR
Chelsea Football Club has launched its Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2005/2006, the first CSR report for the club. The club also believes that they are the first football club to publish a CSR report and it has also partnered with its first global charity partner – Right To Play, an organisation working with volunteers and partners to use sport and play to help enhance child development. The report outlines Chelsea’s CSR strategy, community investment and charity partnerships as well as initiatives.
Reporting has not improved since last year, according to the judges at this year’s ACCA Awards for Sustainability Reporting 2006. The judges, from a diverse range of organisations such as KPMG, FTSE Group and Transparency International, awarded the top prize to the Vodafone Group but felt that overall reporting focused “too much on operational issues” rather than the future plans of the business and the impact of its products and services on sustainable development.
They made a number of recommendations, which included the importance of defining the key issues related to sustainable development and their implications for the business. They stressed the need for disaggregate data on company performance in the local areas where it operates – that is country-by-country information for multinationals instead of overall group data. The judges feel that this will highlight local trends and performance better.
The judges further questioned the value of independent assurance statements and felt that “some assurance statements fail to address readers’ needs, too often being limited to a simple box-ticking exercise”. They make a number of recommendations here too, which include adding commentary and opinion instead of just ‘ticking boxes’ and also address the previous year’s recommendations.
The runner-up in the awards was the Co-operative Financial Services and the awards were hosted by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants on March 1.
The BBC has published its first online Corporate Responsibility and Partnerships Review. Visitors to the site can view film clips, listen to staff talk about volunteering and get involved. The Review can also be downloaded. Contact – BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/outreach
ANZ published its 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report – What’s the difference? – on February 6. It outlines ANZ’s achievements on its people, customer, community and environment agendas over the past 12 months. Contact – ANZ, www.anz.com/cr2006
Royal Philips Electronics has published its Sustainability Annual Report 2006 on February 19, and reported a rise in sales of environmentally friendly products to EUR 4bn in 2006. Contact – Royal Philips Electronics, www.philips.com
Procter & Gamble has published its Sustainability Report 2006, its first since it merged with Gillette. The report especially highlight’s P&G’s work on purifying water in developing countries. Contact – P&G, www.pg.com
Novartis, has published its Corporate Citizenship Review 2006. It is an overview of the corporate citizenship strategy. Contact – Novartis, 0041 61 324 1111, www.novartis.com
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